Zenta

Leg design

To make Morphex being able to curl up into a ball shape, I've decided to go for a little special leg design. Actually, MorpHex is a sort of dual hexapod, where one leg share a common coxa part with two femur and tibia parts.

I'm using standard SES brackets, but pay attention to the ASB 15 v2 bracket that holds the two femur servos. The v2 bracket is just perfect for attaching the ASB-04 coxa bracket.

5990's are used for the femur and 5645's for the tibia and coxa. 

Notice that the 5990 wires are guided through the 8 mm bearing/SES hole between the ASB-15 v2, LPA lexan spacer and the ASB-04 coxa bracket.

 

Body modifications

Since my first post about this project I've replaced the outer body parts from 1,5 mm to 2 mm thick aluminium, mainly for increased strength and stability (less flexing):

Making sure that every gear is aligned correctly was the hardest part when assembling the body section. I solved it by carefully placing one gear at the time and mark the 4 SES holes on each outer bodysection, remove the section, drill the holes and mount the section onto the inner body section again. Repeated this process for all the 6 sections.

Instead of using 3mm steel hex screws for holding the 12 ball-bearings onto the inner body I'm using 3mm threaded rods. The rods make it much easier for mounting a holder for battery and electronics.

All the six legs are finally assembled, next step is to mount them to the body:

 

MorpHex, taking form

I know it looks kinda messy right now, but I do have plan, LOL. This picture show all legs mounted to the body and the upper part have their legs curled up into the ball shape position.

Another picture illustrate MorpHex in the walk mode position:

I've fixed some sphere parts with velcro just for giving you a little hint of how MorpHex are going to look like with all the sphere parts mounted: 

 

 

 

I might have to modify the feet a little bit (using smaller end caps and modify the ends of the tubes) so that they can be aligned even closer in the curled position. But these pictures illustrate how it's going to look like at the end: 

Just for visualization:

This is one of my favorite pictures, it kinda remind me of the unfinished Death Star from Star Wars, LOL: