Zero, the Nightmare Before Christmas dog

Merry Christmas from Chopper and Zero as they help me with the tree.

Zero was a hit at the Halloween event. Thankfully I packed two batteries because driving him on the grass completely drained the first one within an hour. I'm definitely upgrading to the larger tires and maybe a bigger set of motors for next year.

Zero ran afoul of the Ghostbusters while he was there. However, the Ghostbuster took a PKE reading and said "My readings show Zero" and he was free to go. I may have laughed a bit too much at that terrific pun.

Tomorrow is the big reveal at a city-wide Halloween event. Thankfully I can break him down and fit him into my car. Not much fits in a 2016 Camaro SS. 

The head and collapsed body fit in the front and rear seat. 

While the drive chassis and the lower support system sit in the trunk along with a spare battery and backup controllers. 

Hopefully I haven't forgotten anything. 

I received Zero's Halloween Hackfest poster yesterday. It's very nice. I made sure to put it up in the workshop with Zero. 

After that I got to work fixing that hole around his neck (or at least making it less noticeable) and covering up the LEDs on the electronics. I considered painting the inside of Zero black but our weather forecast doesn't look favorable for that. Electrical tape was enough to block the LEDs. 

While Zero was off the chassis I could take a picture showing the size difference between the drive system and his body. I considered swapping the motor leads and making Zero a front wheel drive but I'm pretty sure the terrain for the upcoming Halloween event is going to be mostly grass so the larger front drive wheels are probably my best bet. One day I want to upgrade this chassis with some much larger wheels I have that are pneumatic. I just have to worry about clearance within K-9's body. 

Today I got Zero on the ground and moving around. There are some things I need to fix like the hole around his neck and the LEDs from the electronics shining through the body. 

I finally got the cheap AMP I ordered after about a week long delay. I came close to tearing one out of one of my other projects just to get Zero talking. I've used these little 4 dollar AMPs in other projects and they aren't terrible. I have yet to fry one. Since we're talking 2-10 second sound clips I am not worried about overheating issues either. At the most Zero will be playing "This is Halloween" or any one of the other songs from Nightmare Before Christmas every once in awhile. As someone that drives other robots around the constant songs and talking can be very irritating.

Now to figure out where I am going to mount this and the speakers. They're going to be on the skeleton so Zero can be a self contained "cover" for the chassis. It makes swapping between K-9 and Zero less of a hassle.

It's something I should know. It's a lesson I have learned more than once in my life. Unfortunately I didn't realize that Zero's skin was way too flexible for spray paint. This is the result of me removing the skin so I could glue the skeleton. 

With this lesson learned...for now...I looked into plasti dip for attempt number 2 but before that I glued up the frame. 

I can still break it down for travel and storage but most of it is glued together. Now I can carry it without it falling apart. 

Zero, painted with Plasti Dip this time. There's no glow on this but if, in a few days, the paint proves to be flexible enough I'm going to see if I can find some sort of flexible glow paint to try. Otherwise only his head will be glowing. 

It's finally stopped raining around here and the humidity dropped low enough for me to paint Zero. Jonathan said this material took to paint very well and he wasn't exaggerating. The paint went on very smooth and adhered extremely well. 

I decided to do a single coat of white primer, a light and very random dusting of glow in the dark paint, and then a matte clear. I got the coverage I wanted with the single coat of primer and since it isn't too thick I might be able to do some internal lighting. 

The glow in the dark looks better than I expected. Unfortunately, it's hard to photograph so here are a couple of blurry ghostly photos. 

Next up will be letting the glue on the nose dry overnight and then I can see about getting him on the ground for some driving video. 

What's Halloween without a jack o'lantern? Thankfully, faithful Zero has what we need. I knew I wanted a flickering light in his nose and I had worked out how I was going to run an Arduino nano with an RGB pixel. However, when talking to a fellow Astromech builder he mentioned a tea light already did exactly what I wanted and he was right. All I had to do was clip out the LED, wire it up to a voltage regulator, and bingo. I had the light I wanted. As a bonus the "flame" in the tea light was perfect to put inside Zero's nose. It gives a little more detail than we could see in the film but I am sure this is what Zero's nose was supposed to look like. 

The pumpkin was sourced a couple of years ago from a silly Halloween prop, it was just coated in glitter. I had to scrap all that off and then cut out the jack o'lantern shape. 

I put Zero on the ground so I could check the body for clearance before deciding on paint. I've got a few days before I can paint him anyway thanks to forecasted rain. The triangular gape is going to get a filler piece of black material just to cover up the frame. Zero is more like a sheet so that area is actually just a gap in the film.

Sketch seems skeptical about it but I really like the way that the plastic is starting to take shape for Zero. I'm going to need some more PVC connectors but I think this will work and look like a flowing sheet.