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Weebo Assembly Pt 1

Weebo Main Body Assembly

2016-04-06 18.36.06

Lets start off from the beginning. Weebo is printed in multiple parts and has many areas that may require sanding, grinding or drilling. This is not meant to be a ready to build kit but more of a walk through of my process. It takes time and patience, but believe me it is worth the time. I have build two Weebos so far, one is the original and a second that is more screen accurate for a friend of mine.

First off, it helps to get a majority of the parts printed off the batt, but I would start with the main body parts. Download the complete STLs from the zip file and get an idea of what is involved. The main body is split up into 12 separate parts due to the majority of printer beds not being big enough. You have the Top, Bottom and Base to get printed and assembled. Again this is not a complete guide, more of a overview with some tips.

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After printing these parts, I went ahead and sanded, primed, sanded, more primed, more sanding and even more wet sanding. This gets rid of the print lines and makes it easier to sand each part individually before assembling. You will still be doing more sanding and priming after, but I found this to help. I also used some filler putty on some of the rougher areas.

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Now, for the Inside Base I have it setup for you to print. If you choose to print this part, please do so at 100% infill. Even then it may be too flimsy if you choose to mount your Weebo to the robotic arm system. Now that may be untrue as I never tested it, I went ahead and milled it out of 1/8 aluminum. It should work fine, including the use of servo animatronics, but I am not sure about mounting. Please let me know if you try that!

I did assemble a 3D printed base originally and used superglue to hold it together. It held quite well actually as you can see below. Also below is the beautiful aluminum InsideBase as one piece. In the zip file I included a dxf of that file if you want to send it off to a shop to have made.

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Now this next part is probably the most annoying part of the whole build. You need to get the Top and Bottom pieces to join and be screwed together through the bottom base. You will do this by bolting two adjoining pieces together, but before this go ahead and install these two servos as shown. They are for the ears and will be next to impossible to install after the body is together. (Remember these photos are from two different builds, so things may look different between the two, but you will be able to understand)

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Now that you have these two parts installed, we install the next set of body parts. But when installing these, we will be using small pieces of filament to join the pieces together using the preprint holes. It may require a little drill bit to make them fit, but they should be snug. This helps keep everything aligned and give strength to the superglue bond that we will apply later.

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Now before we install the next set, you will need to actually join the two remaining sets together with the filament “pins” BEFORE attaching to the base. That is because it is a half attaching together. If you mounted one more side first, then you would have trouble getting the pins to line up from the remaining quarter piece. I hope that makes sense… see photos.

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Now time to glue these pieces together. I used typical superglue with an accelerator. This along with our filament “pins” give Weebo a lot of strength. After it hardens, Sand some more… fill some more… and sand again. I cant stress this enough. You can make 3D printed parts looks amazing if you spend time getting the print lines out.

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After you are sure its smooth as you can get, we are going to tape off the inside along with the thin line of the base that is visible all the way around Weebo. Then comes a full coat of primer with some more wet sanding then the yellow paint. You may go ahead and have your ears and HeadScreen parts sanded and painted during this process, why not? I used an automotive Detonator Yello paint from a Jeep Wrangler. You can buy this on amazon and one 12oz can should be enough. (AMAZON LINK)

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Well there you go for the main body! In the next section we will go over more of the other parts and some assembly