Tardis Transformer toy

thingiverse

Inspired by Jason Casteel's TARDIS Prime artwork: http://jasoncasteel.deviantart.com/art/TARDIS-Prime-T-Shirt-260357984 I saw the shirt, and had to work out how to make it actually physically work. I did end up having to completely design the transformation sequence from scratch. This print can be assembled without glue or any screws or other non-printed hardware, although you may want to glue some of the parts together anyway if you intend to actually play with it. The only challenging part about this print is the large number of parts (over 70 individual parts needed) and the size of some of the parts (although you should be able to handle everything with a 100mm cube print space). It's a big toy once printed. Tardis mode is about 6 3/4" tall and 3 3/4" wide. Robot mode stands 13" tall - it's folded up pretty tightly when it's a Tardis, unpacks into a much larger toy in robot mode. Honestly I'm not completely happy with the way this turned out. It's large, took a lot of plastic to develop, and the robot mode is incapable of standing on its own. It's too large and top-heavy for the friction in the joints to keep it standing, even though the feet are huge. I may attempt to redesign the entire toy at a smaller scale, to be easier to print and more functional as a display figure. This was printed in PLA on my scratch-built Delta style printer. The original files were drawn by hand in AutoCAD. I have uploaded a zip file containing all the AutoCAD source files. My blog, with information on this and other things I've made, is at http://drewsrobots.blogspot.com/ Instructions Head and neck assembly: Print the following parts: 1 headcore (grey or silver) 1 headshell (blue) 1 headantenna_left (blue) 1 headantenna_right (blue) 1 collar (grey, but color of this part doesn't matter much) 1 neck_link (black) Trim the head core and shell if needed until they fit snugly together with the holes in the sides lined up. Press the right and left antenna pieces into the holes to lock the core into the shell. Optionally, use a black Sharpie marker to fill in the eyes on the faceplate. Push the neck_link part through the hole in the collar as shown in the picture. Note that it can go in two different ways, but only one is correct, and you can't rotate it after pushing it in. Press the ball on the end of the neck link into the cup at the base of the head. Legs: For each leg, print the following parts: 1 heel (left or right) (blue) 1 foot (left or right) (blue) 1 ankle (left or right) (white) 1 legblock (left or right) (blue) 1 upperleg (no left or right, both sides use the same) (white) 2 pin_foot (color doesn't matter, I use grey) 2 pin_short (color doesn't matter, I use grey) 1 elbow_link (color doesn't matter, I use grey) Press the pin on the heel part into the hole on the foot as shown in the photo. The heel should be able to freely swing through about 135 degrees. Line up one of the holes on the ankle piece with the other hole on the foot as shown and then press one of the foot pins through to lock it in place. Make sure you get the hole on the ankle, the pin is hard to get out once you press it in. When assembled properly the hook on the heel should lock with the hook on the ankle when in robot mode. The main leg block attaches to the ankle piece as shown in the picture. Line up the thru hole on the ankle piece with the two holes on the bottom end of the leg block, and press a single foot pin through to hold them together. The white upper leg segments are the same on the right and left legs, and attach to the lower leg assembly with one of the short pins. Each upper leg has a flat on one end. When the leg is assembled this flat should be upwards and facing forwards as shown in the picture. The rounded end of the leg with no notch attaches to the lower leg assembly. Make sure you get this right as the connecting pins are hard to get out once you're pressed them in. Put the elbow link into the slot in the top of the upper leg segment, line up the holes, and use the remaining short pin to lock them together. Arms: For each arm, print the following parts: 1 fist (left or right) (grey) 1 pin_short (color doesn't matter, I used grey) 1 arminsert (grey) 1 forearm (left or right) (blue) 1 elbow_link (color doesn't matter, I use grey) 1 shoulderblock (left or right) (blue) 1 shoulderlink (left or right) (black) Press the fist onto the pin sticking of of the arm insert. The fist should be able to rotate freely once attached. The arm insert block needs to go into the opening on the forearm. The raised nub on the side of the insert lines up and slots into the slot on the side of the forearm. Press the raised part down carefully as you push the insert into the forearm as shown in the photo. Once it snaps into place it should slide freely, allowing you to extend or retract the fists. Press the round part of the elbow link into the back of the arm, lining up the hole, and press a short pin through to lock it in place. Press the pin on the elbow link into the shoulder block. The round knob on the shoulder link should press into the socket shoulder block as shown. It should be able to wiggle back and forth with a little effort once inserted. The windows bars on the shoulder block have a narrow slot behind them into which you can insert a piece of white construction paper to make it actually look like a window if you wish. You can also optionally stick a police box decal onto the flat bar part of the shoulder link here as shown. Lower torso: Print the following parts: 1 hip_left (blue) 1 hip_right (blue) 1 abdomen (white) 2 pin_hip (color doesn't matter, I used grey) 1 elbow_link (color doesn't matter, I used grey) 1 pin_short (color doesn't matter, I used grey) Press the pin_hip parts into the two round holes on the abdomen part. Press the left and right hip parts onto these pins as shown in the picture. Put the round end of the elbow link into the slot on the abdomen part. Line up the holes, and push a short pin through to lock it in place. Take the leg assemblies you made earlier and press the connecting pin on the elbow link part on each into the remaining hole on the left and right hips. Upper torso: Print the following parts: 1 backflap (blue) 1 bowtie (red) 1 chest_link (black) 1 lampcap (blue) 1 lampshell (white) 2 pin_shoulder (color doesn't matter, I used grey) 1 torsobodybottom (blue) 1 torsobodymid (blue) 1 torsobodytop (blue) 1 torsotopslider_left (blue) 1 torsotopslider_right (blue) 1 windowflap_left (blue) 1 windowflap_right (blue) The torso bottom part and the two window flap parts also have slots behinds the window bars where you can insert white construction paper slips to give the appearance of windows. Press the two long grey shoulder pins into the holes in the bottom torso part. You can glue these in if you want, but it's not required. Slide the two window flaps onto the shoulder pins as shown in the picture. If you glued the pins in, be sure you don't get any glue on the window flaps as these parts need to swing freely. Press the torso mid plate over the shoulder pins aligned with the lower torso block as shown. Press the chest_link part into the front two holes on the torso mid plate as shown. If you want you can apply a 'police box' decal over the front of the chest link. This part can also be glued in place if you want to make the toy more robust. Put the holes on the shoulder links attached to the arm assemblies you made earlier over the ends of the shoulder pins. They should rotate freely through about a 120 degree range of travel. Take the torso upper piece and press the left and right torso top slider blocks onto the tabs on top as shown. They should snap in securely, yet let the torso sliders slide to the side to open the hole int the top center of the torso, or together to close it. Turn the torso upper piece over. Fit the bowtie into the small slot on the front of the torso piece as shown. Put the two conical nubs on the sides of the collar piece of the head assembly from before into the two indentations on the bottom of the top plate. Line up the four holes on the torso upper piece with the four pins sticking up from the torso lower assembly and press them together. You can optionally use glue, but make sure not to stick the shoulder links or the head assembly in place if you do. Press the backflap piece onto the tab on the collar of the head assembly. The narrow part of the back flap should be behind the head. Take the lamp cap and put the snap on it though the lamp shell and into the hole on the top of the backflap. Optionally, use glue to make the lamp more robust if the toy needs to be able to be played with. Press the linking pin coming out of the abdomen block into the center hole on the torso upper piece. Your toy is now assembled. The file "decals.odg" contains the images for the labels scaled to the model. This is an OpenOffice Draw file.