Another bunch of upgrades happened over the past week, as well.
First off, the chassis got a proper gloss black paint job (glossy as semi-sanded pine get get, anyway):
I didn't put too much effort in to sanding it all plastic-smooth, since we're planning on replacing this chassis with a proper aluminum one after SEMA. Here's the main frame of the chassis drying:
Put some warp drive nacelles on that thing and it's a Star Trek starship.
I even hit the front caster forks for some added... Um... Black.
And here's the finished black chassis:
Notice, too the new control mounting brackets on the fronts of the IKEA chair arms. They're made from the parts of the chair legs I cut off. A little ebony wood filler and some black paint and you'd think IKEA was making special Office Chairiot Mark II edition Poäng chairs!
Another upgrade: The batteries are all sitting inside the chassis cavities to keep the profile of the chassis and drive system as low profile as possible:
I moved the motor controller and contactor down into the space I had originally intended to use for the Accessories battery. The Accessories battery is now sunken into a slot just forward of that space. There's now plenty of clearance for the chair to bounce around. Also notice that there is a proper ground bus bar and a 12-volt bus bar to make quick work of connecting things together. There is no 24-volt bus bar because the only thing using that voltage is the motor controller and motors. I do have an extra bar in case I add 24-volt accessories, but I don't anticipate that.
The last upgrade I made yesterday was what I call the "Fast Latch" system for quickly changing what rides atop of the motorized base of the Office Chairiot Mark II:
The chair, wagon box or whatever else might sit on top of the chassis has 2x4 size rails that fit in slots on the left and right edges of the chassis. There are holes in the rails that those four heavy-duty bolt latches slide into.
The bolts are screwed all the way into the chassis' top plate, so once the chair is locked in, you can lift the entire chassis by the chair, yet you can attach and detach the chair in 5 seconds.
In keeping with the "show readiness" theme for SEMA, I painted the bolt bases gloss black, of course. :)
There they are in action. They're rock solid and it's so nice to be able to so quickly remove and install the chair, I have to say. It will make showing off the chassis guts WAY faster and easier. Plus, I hope to have the wagon-wall accessory completed in time for SEMA. That's actually a simple build, but will be a really cool addition to show the versatility of this motorized base.
