Utility Arm pivot points - upgrade time 2017

This wasn't on my list of 'things to do', but due to 'little fingers' lol, one of the utility arms, location pads had come loose. So over the last few weeks, this has been one of the other mini projects for R5.

Not bad considering the amount of action they've seen.
Link to post I blogged way back: Utility Arm Pivot pins fixing.

There's the loose pads.

Black mesh screen removed to gain access to rear of arms

Next was to remove the central support piece (the piece above the upper pad).

This was made of MDF.....yes, I hang my head in shame lol. But it was all I had at the time to support the center area.

I then measured up and cut out a piece of plywood which the new thicker pivot pads will be screwed to.

 The pad is temp screwed into place.

Again, just to show position of pad and pivot arm point pads.
This pad is a bit to short, so cut a new longer one.

I may possibly need to modify the servo arms if they are to be fixed to the new bracket. Tho the black mesh will also need to be modified, so if to able to, the servos can remain on it.

not pretty, but will do for now, until servo positions finalised

Drilled and screwed the pivot pads in place.

I also used the old center support to re-cut it out of 8mm thick plywood. The plan is to fit it to the arm pivot pads to make one unit. The 'center support' can be see mid section of the utility arm opening (screw head)

Work then on the upper arm. And as per usual, nothing is ever a simply 'copy/repeat' straight forward process. The pivot pads had to be modified more to:

a) fit
b) have enough material to be screwed into onto the rear pad.

(a normal build probably wouldn't have these kinds of problems lol)

This was achieved and so work could then continue on with primer & this time, matt black paint.

The above pic shows how the pivot pads were 'recessed' under the with of the arm. This was so there was enough material to screw into.
And here's the upper arm pivots attached to the frame pad along with the 'center support' for the arms and the outer skin.

Now these are installed and are a lot firmer, I may need to upgrade the servos to more powerful ones to be able to more the arms. This I'll be testing soon.