'Bad Motivator' - upgrade to power lift 'Blown' status 1.8 [You-Tube]

Installation Time!

Got home last night and started on fixing the electronics board into position. But soon realised that this position was not a good idea! Do to the material being screwed to was flexing and moving the outer skin. So back to the drawing board.

Whilst looking inside the dome, it came to me to just make a bracket and secure the board to the inside roof, like everything else lol

So in work this morning, I got to cut up an angle strip of Aluminium and drilled location and fixing holes into it. This can now be fitted and all wired up!

So on Saturday, I fitted the bracket to the inside roof of dome. Then attached bad motivator board to the bracket. Had to do some power re-wiring inside R5 to sort 12 volt power to board, then using multimeter, adjusted the voltage regulator to 6 volts. Topped up the e-Cig unit with some more fog juice and here's the first test video in action.

There was a bit of wind when I video'd hence the gaps in the fog showing.

I'll adjust the timer once the sound is sorted. Next is to wire up the actuator to pop up the motivator.

'Bad Motivator' - upgrade to power lift 'Blown' status 1.7

Last night I trimmed board down the board so it can fit in this position. Will have to reposition the timer relay.

Dome wires previously set up for individual power of lights, motivator and smoke....not now required, so I could use these for other things (???) Only the 12 volt feed is needed to then be distributed to motivator and smoke via dome board.

'Bad Motivator' - upgrade to power lift 'Blown' status 1.6 [You-Tube]

Not had much time to work on this recently, but got back onto Monday.

I'd found a suitable piece of MDF that I could mount the components onto. I then did a bit of re-cutting of wires (see prev post pic) to shorten them to better fit the board and layout of them all.

Once layed out, I marked and drilled securing holes and fixed down with mini cable ties.
Not very pretty, but necessary.

And here's the test video showing the timer relay in action. I connected an LED to the 12 volt output to show power, the voltage regulator has it's own LED power indicator already.

R5's You Tube page

I just need to add some labels to identify what power and where wires go where lol.

Next is to test connect up to the Dome and the Bad Motivator & Smoke system to test for real!!

'Bad Motivator' - upgrade to power lift 'Blown' status 1.5

Components arrived at the weekend, sooner than I'd expected lol. But wasn't able to try them out till Tuesday.

As always the instructions for at least one components wiring diagram are......well, inaccurate......would be putting it mildly! lol. A black& white picture, no colour identities, component picture doesn't actually match the component! But it didn't take long to sort.

So this is the plan for connecting it all up.

And here's it all wired up for testing, using an LED as the motivator/smoke side of things.

The cigarette plug, connects to the 12v power adaptor.

And here it is again, this time with the voltage regulator fitted. Again, this is just a test fitting.

The voltage regulator will be connected up to the smoke system (pump & E-Cig) as this runs at 6 volts. There will be another connection to link up to the 12 volt to the door actuator to activate the Motivator.

The remote triggers the circuit, which activates the timer relay, sending power to the motivator and smoke system. After the set time, the timer switches off and system deactivates. There is a bonus fail safe in that another button has to be pressed to reset the first button......well it's a bonus for now....lol

R5-D4 visits Glenfrome Summer Fair 2015

This was R5's first event where I didn't have to make an early start lol.

As the school is only about a twenty minute drive, I arrived around 11am to assembled & prep R5. It was a strange feeling walking through the corridors, was remembering everything being bigger tho lol. Mind you it was over 30 years ago. And even though there was a lot of new building work done over the years, there was a lot of stuff that hadn't changed.

It was a very hot sunny day and there were lots of stalls and games to be played. It took me back to my child hood and my Son was really interested in me telling him about when I used to go there. R5 was driving around almost non stop for the three hours the fair was open! His batteries were almost drained lol. The kids loved him and he had hugs of loads, did scare one little person, but she was very small lol. Parents and kids asked me lots about him and how he was built. So a good day all round.

We look forward to next year :)