Hinges, pins and joints

[morg176]

To the customisers of ozformers

How does one make hinges, and joints for customised transformer figures?
What do you use for the metal pin?

I have always wanted to make my own tf, it has always got drown in the details.

If it helps, I have my own 3d printer and I can use sketchup

Any help or experience would be appreciated. M

[UltraMarginal]

I've done very little physical customising myself.
I've seen others re-use joints from junker toys. which would be a great way of getting hold of pins.

your 3D printer may struggle to print in a resolution you're happy with for a final product. If you do use it I'd use ABS as it's much stronger than PLA as far as I understand (though it's more toxic, you might want to check the MSDS)

If your designing ball joints, keep in mind that the socket needs to have some sort of split to allow for expansion to insert the ball. you will want a very tight tolerance on the diameter of the ball and the socket. sharp corners tend to be weak spots, always radius corners. try to avoid sudden big changes in material thickness, this will promote warping as plastic cools, especially if you end up developing a design for injection moulding.

consider trying out 123D, it's more of a part design software than sketchup which I understand to be more of an architectural software.

If you have a spare 10 K, use Catia.

[Raider]

I've seen others re-use joints from junker toys. which would be a great way of getting hold of pins.

For non-complex stuff, this is what I would recommend. I have repaired many bots using junker parts from differing bots and even on some custom testing I just use junkers. I have a huge box of junker parts I keep just for that very reason.

[SMHFConvoy]

I use, lego, construct bot parts, hinges from other toys and there's this site that rediscovered recently for scratch built hinges:

Cardboardmodeling.com

[Golden Phoenix]

I've seen some people use Lego ball and socket connections before.

[UltraMarginal]

I use, lego, construct bot parts, hinges from other toys and there's this site that rediscovered recently for scratch built hinges:

Cardboardmodeling.com

I've always thought construct bots heads would make great custom head start points.

[morg176]

I had the idea of trying to design my own tf, even if it is an unsophisticated one.
Even though I draw characters all the time, make a tfing one is proving cumbersome

I persevere