[Wombii]

This fire monitor keeps throwing problems at me that I never considered. One of them is how to make a simple swivel mount with low friction that is both stable and can be attached and detached reasonably quickly. Another issue is the geometry of a flexible tube. If it bends at another radius or another location than the hinges, the tube will need to stretch. This causes strain on the servos that they can't overcome. I've solved it for the pitch servo, but I don't see a solution for the rotation axis. Currently, rotating the monitor 30 degrees moves the end of the silicone tube by half an inch.

This is my current attempt at a swivel mount using a ring magnet on a thin tube that snaps to a ball bearing inside a large tube.






Carving cosmetic ridges on the nozzle shroud. They really made a huge difference to the scale appearance.





I gave it another shot and managed to carve out enough support structure to mount the swivel rotation servo on the inside, made a removable structure to hold the pitch servo and swivel mount and got the skirt mounted. I also apparently killed the pitch servo. I was hoping it was due to glue, but it looks like I bent the output shaft a fraction of a degree. That's a bit worrying, as I can't fit larger servos. Also visible to the rear is a bent styrene guide tube that helps reduce the strain of the pitch servo caused by the silicone tubing.






Other than these issues I'm very happy with the shell. The construction with thinner layered materials make it surprisingly strong and light.