The New PhantomX AX Metal Hexapod Kit is here!

[r3n33]

The total weight for the MK-II came in around 4.4 lbs. The new MK-III kit (mind you with a huge battery that fills the entire body cavity) comes in at 5.1 lbs. It feels like a tank, but moves as smoothly as ever.

Thanks Do you have any pictures of the new toe design? I'm curious if it still uses the stick on rubber pads for traction? Or if I could possibly print a rubberized toe to replace the delrin plate.

[wadecore]

Thanks Do you have any pictures of the new toe design? I'm curious if it still uses the stick on rubber pads for traction? Or if I could possibly print a rubberized toe to replace the delrin plate.

I'm sure you've seen it by now, but I took a video of the new foot. The delrin plate is slotted so that you can place rubber socks over it. This really keeps things running super smooth. It grips enough to move cleanly on hard surfaces, and it doesn't have so much surface area that it causes an issue on carpet. Always feel free to experiment with the design. You might find out something that we haven't!
https://www.instagram.com/p/-2XVz2Hg1O/

[r3n33]

Thanks Wade! I think the new foot looks great and bet it will withstand a lot more wear and tear.

[LloydF]

Yea! I love the metal parts, I had stopped working on this bot because the plates would get brittle and break when you chnaged
things out. No more. Good job thank you.

[scandermore]

Hello!

As I can see, the junction between the tibia bracket and the servo has only 4 screws per side, and in the mark II version it had 7, with one of the sides of the bracket extending the full extension of the servo. As the servo attahcment is made of plastic, would not have been better to design that part of the servo as the previous version? Or is this enough for the weight it has to support? I'm thinking about the long term use and possible problems in the future.

Anyway, great update for the PhantomX!

Alex

[jwatte]

While the servo is made of plastic, it's made of a much stronger plastic than the one used in the previous Phantom cases.

Sincerely,

jw

[scandermore]

Thank you jw. Glad to see the Servos are also improved in the new version!

I have a question I don't know if someone will know about it: looking at the original PhantomX, the one with the straight tibias, I see that the design of the legs is very different from the mark II and III, and somehow it likes me more, but I suppose that the new design offers some advantages to the hexapod, but I don't know clearly what are them. Anyone knows what benefits (or reasons for the change) has the mark II leg design over the original PhantomX?

Thank you

Alex

[jwatte]

Glad to see the Servos are also improved in the new version!

Sorry, I was unclear. It turns out that different kinds of plastics have different properties.

The servos haven't changed. They're made of something like Acetal, which is a strong, robust plastic. (I haven't found publicly available specs, but it feels like Acetal in the hand, and it's less slippery than something like Nylon 6/6, which is another strong engineering plastic, and less shiny than something like ABS which is cheaper, but less robust, which kind-of leaves Acetal as the main candidate.)

The previous version of the skeleton used an Acrylic/Polycarbonate mix that was laser cut. Unfortunately, that's somewhat fragile and sesitive to cracking. But it's easy to laser cut and manufacture things out of!

The new version is apparently made of 5052 aluminum. My guess is they water jet cut it, and then bend some pieces on a break. 5052 is a little more wiggly than 6061, but it bends much nicer without cracking, and it is a significant upgrade compared to the previous plastics!

Also, I want a quad version :-)

[ezex]

nice, tempting

[KurtEck]

nice, tempting

I broke down and ordered...