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I've had several comments posted about being able to pull cable or home security wire. Sound like a great idea until that cable gets caught or snagged on something and then you have to go crawl to rescue your crawler. Would the crawler need to go find the cable and then drag it back? There'd have to be some sort of grabber with a catch and release mechanism. I don't know how much "pull" my system has until the wheels slip in dirt. I imagine a drone has even less horizontal pull. I would also imagine that a drone would kick up a lot of dust as it flew through a narrow dirty area. So many things to consider. Thanks for your comments, and don't give up. Half of the fun is building it.

@@jeffg8232 I wasn't referring to using a flying drone for wire pulling. Your wire puller is a wheeled drone. People are just accustomed to hearing the word drone used mostly in relation to flying devices. I was just comparing how the same level of features and technology in flying drones is much more affordable and widely available than wheeled drones, even though it should be cheaper to buy or build a wheeled one. The $600 in parts and who knows how much in labor that you spent would buy a pretty nice flying drone. It's crazy how those have such a huge market but nobody is producing something like your crawler at the same or lower price point. Personally, I can think of way more uses for your crawler than I can think of for an aerial drone. People just like the idea of things that fly and then they get bored of them.

@@jeffg8232 Regarding getting stuck, I'm planning to attach a recovery rope to the $50 RC car i bought to attempt my sprinkler wire install. We will see. Right now I'm just practicing driving it to make sure I don't bang around too fast. I guess I'll have to make videos too. 👍

In developing these escapement models, friction was one of my major enemies. Getting that little nudge of energy back into the pendulum reliably was difficult when friction would slow things down, especially when working with wood surfaces. I really liked the grasshopper movement because the pin just slightly rotates on the catch point, but doesn't slide. I'm also interested in gravity escapements. They appear to have minimal sliding components. Your pin-in-groove idea is going to be a challenge in many aspects. Please make a video if you succeed.

Look at Min 6:53. All is explained. By the way, you are only the 3rd person to comment on this.

I didn't build these for timekeeping performance, rather as a building and learning experience. I've made no attempt to measure the stability of these escapements. The Galileo was the most difficult to get working, and the grasshopper was the easiest. I like the grasshopper because it is the most satisfying to watch. Stay tuned. I am starting to work on a video of a vintage regulator clock that takes the performance prize.

@@jeffg8232 - Thank you for the reply. I hope that clockwork can make a comeback and replace batteries for a lot of simple home devices. Any advice on fitting clockwork mechanisms into larger projects?

@@christopherd.winnan8701 Wow! You're on your own for that. No idea what devices you would like to convert, but these escapements wouldn't go far. You have to wind them every 8 hours or so. Good Luck.

@@jeffg8232 - I am more interested in the 30 day mechanism that you used for your moon clock to simulate the tides. Thanks for the great vid.

Those RC cars are too fast, as well. Go look at Servocity.com and look at their chassis kits. A great place to start. I used an earlier version of the "RECON" kit, with lower RPM motors. Lower speed, a lot more torque. My crawler has never got stuck or flipped, other than once getting tangled in some telephone wires.

@@jeffg8232 I have ordered the hammerhead + 12v control bundle as you suggest below. How did you ask them to send you the 60 rpm motors? Did you place the order and then left a message for that request?

@@yingxu7262 This was several years ago when I built it. I remembering getting on the phone with their customer service group, and requesting substituting the low RPM (60 RPM) motors, but I don't know if was before or after I had placed the order. I'd call ASAP. Or maybe you could exchange them after you get the kit. Let me know how the Hammerhead chassis works. That wasn't available when I built, but now I wish I had it.

Kyle, thank you for your comments. I'm glad I could pass a project along to someone else. I'd love to see what your finished crawler looks like. If you have any questions during your build, I'd be happy to help.

Aargh! I knew someone would ask about the drawing programs some day. There isn't an easy answer. For the capitol building drawing, this is just a line drawing I got off the internet, ran it through Inkscape to generate the "path" and ultimately the g-code to send to the machine. When getting started, I used drawings from kids' coloring books because they are simple line drawings. I assume you are using Inkscape to build your G-code. It took me months to learn Inkscape by trial and error, and I wrote a "cookbook" to convert jpeg drawings to G-code. I do not have permission to distribute or publish the Capitol drawing, so I am hesitant to pass it on. My suggestion is to pick a line drawing of your liking and work through the details of the Inkscape/Universal G-code Sender to build your own library of drawings. I'll post my "cookbook" below. Inkscape can be very complicated, and there's a steep learning curve. The circle & line test pattern that I use at the end of the video was created in PowerPoint, and then run thru Inkscape/UGS. The continuous curve drawing is more complicated, but it doesn't involve Inkscape. I wanted to emulate the drawings of the Spirograph toy. Fortunately, Wikipedia's description of the Spirograph gives the formulas to generate the x and y coordinates of the drawn pattern, based on the radius of the two gears. I took those formulas and generated a list of about 5000 x/y coordinates in Excel, and extracted those as a CSV file and turned it into a G-Code file. That drawing you see is the system tracing 5000 small straight lines without lifting the pen. When I first started, I hand-edited very simple G-Code items (squares, circles, zig-zags, etc.) to learn the basics of the code. Learning about origin setting, absolute vs relative coordinates, and pen lifts was essential. Only when I was comfortable with this, did I then start using Inkscape. I know this is sort of an "exercise for the student" answer, but when you learn these techniques, you can have your drawing machine create whatever you want, rather than getting the fixed G-code that someone else created. ------------------------------- Plotter Cookbook Select and prepare jpeg drawing. Take out any small clutter that won’t plot. Open Inkscape and open jpeg drawing. file-> document properties 8.5x11 & portrait lock height X width ratio and shrink jpeg to fit page Path -> Trace Bitmap Use centerline trace or auto trace to get Path built. Watch out for double trace Remove jpeg drawing and leave path. Tool block Extension -> GcodeTool -> Tool Library -> Cone Gives you the tool block. You can edit feed number to change drawing speed. Orientation block Extension -> GcodeTool -> Orientation Points Use mm scale and 2 point to get Orientation block. This block can be moved and stretched to set the origin and scale of the drawing. The arrow-arrow spacing is your scale. G Code Extension -> GcodeTool ->Path to Gcode Set your folder and file name first. Set the Z height for 5 mm. When you apply, the arrow vectors appear on the path, and a GCode file is generated. Edit Gcode for proper pen lifts in Notepad. This text is in “Copy into Header.txt” (Replace G00 Z5.000000 with G01 Z5 F5000 ) This is PEN UP. G00 Z?? commands don’t work. (Replace G01 Z0.000000 F100.0(Penetrate) with G01 Z0 F5000 ) This is PEN DOWN Open UGS (universal gcode sender) and load new Gcode file. Check for drawing size and lookout for anything much over 200 X 200 mm Set up Pen With motor power off, push pen holder all the way down. Power on. Connect Communication. Home XY and Zero Z (Boxed “Z” button) Jog up 2 or 3 mm. Install and lock pen with tip touching, then jog up to 5 mm. Run i

I learn the most by building things. It immerses you into all the details, and shows what is important.

I assume you are suggesting adding a capacitor to help suppress the spark. I suppose that could be done, although I prefer using good sized diode to kill the back EMF. However, it is important to me to leave the motor exactly as built, rather than to modify it. That's why I built the more modern version.

I really didn't build these escapements for time accuracy. It was an exercise in design and building. The aluminum pendulum would make them very temperature sensitive, and the weight needs to be wound about every 8 hours. However, I did make a digital "tick counter" to compare the swing of a pendulum to a 1.843200 MHz time reference. It can show long term drift of a pendulum clock. Maybe I will do a video on that.

RJ Thanks, but I'm not interested in building another one of these. Quite frankly, I'd go to ServoCity.com and look at their Hammerhead or Recon chassis kit with the 12V Radio Control bundle. That gives you chassis, motors, Motor controller, RC sender & receiver, and battery. All you'd have to do is add the light bar and cameras. Too Easy.

@@jeffg8232 I will do just that! Thank you!! One other question: what FPV camera unit do you recommend? I need something I can use for shoring and plumbing inspections under home... so will need something pretty clear with FPV and ability to record video and photos

RJ Several suggestions: The off-the-shelf kit from Servocity has 300 RPM motors. I had them substitute 60 RPM motors to give 5X torque. You don't need speed in a crawl space. I'd also forget the 2nd rear view camera. I rarely use it and it ties up 2 channels ( pan servo and camera power switch) on your receiver module. I'd also just use a simple voltage monitor rather than a Volt/Amp monitor. Voltage is enough to monitor the battery, and its much easier on the wiring. The camera/transmitter that I used (Eachine TX05 from Banggood) was easy to setup, but the video quality is not the best, as you can see from my video. If I were to rebuild, I'd look for something that could transmit Hi def video. Maybe a battery operated home security camera, or something like a GoPro. I use the Microsoft "Camera" app on my desktop for the remote driving, and it has the ability to capture still shots and video. Since I only use this at home, I haven't explored using my smart phone for a monitor or recording device.

Look at my comment at the top of the comment list. I have a full parts list.

The escapement is the system to generate a constant beat or tempo (in musical terms). All the other gears in a clock are a system to count those beats. If your escapement ticks once per second, then you need gears to make 60X60 = 3600 ticks to drive the minute hand exactly 1 rotation to indicate 1 hour. I think of gears in terms of a digital divide by "n" logic circuit. Do a Google search on clock gear ratios, and you'll see some good articles on the choice of gears use in typical clocks.

@@jeffg8232 Well-Explained & thks; I just watched some inspiring Foucault's Pendulum & gyroscope videos. The earth rotates around once a day & in-theory a gyroscope always points in one direction in space relative to the-stars. An electric motor mounted on a 3axis gimbal is kinda-like an ugly free-gyro. Soooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo I'm going to try to use an electric motor mounted on a 3axis gimbal as a cool sidereal clock. The gyro should appear to rotate once a day (minus 4minutes for sidereal time & fingers-crossed).

You are absolutely correct on the staggered pallets for the pinwheel. I remember struggling to squeeze them both into one pin space. I'm inspired to remake that escapement arm. I didn't put much effort into make these escapements into accurate timing devices. It was more of a exercise in building and learning. If they ran continuously and had a nice "tick", I was content. Thanks for your suggestion.

@@jeffg8232 if that's what "not much effort" looks like, you're already ahead of half the working clock restorers =) PS the PTFE tape solution is inspired, and don't let any traditionalist tell you otherwise. Function > Form 👍

I'll look up the ornamental lathe. I'm always interested in tools like that. My inspiration was the old Hootnanny toy I had as a kid, but I copied many elements from the Drawing Machine II by Photonflood on RUclips. His design has variable control of all 3 motors. I just made everything direct drive, and employed the Arduino as a controller. I also made it much smaller. You are correct that there is no preview. It's all trial and error. I make notes on my speeds and arm settings, and then make small adjustment to try to improve things. I've learned to not let the pen draw across the center of the page. After multiple passes across the center, it turns into an inky blob. Thanks for your comment.

I built most of this back in 2019 and 2020. I spent about $400 on the early version, and then another $60 or so when I upgraded the Z axis from a servo to a stepper motor. Total about $500.