Main Entrance Rebuild - Part THREE

 

 Below is picture sequence of re-building the Main Entrance.  I am making some changes along the way.  In the two years since this was orginally built, 1) I have a wider variety of parts and 2) a little more skill.  So I am making changes to improve the structural integrity (and this make it easier to transport) and to redo the way the wiring is done.

Also I will have to make accommodation for the new sliding doors along the way.

One of the big changes was the plates used for the floor of the conference room and the briefing room.  Before it was a Hodge Podge of plates that I had.  Now it is minimized and constructed in such way to provide maximum structural integrity.

I am making progress, though I can see that things will have to change further once I start the sliding door integration.

Main Entrance Rebuild - Part TWO

 

 As described in the last post on this, I need to redesign the power distribution.  But I was not motivated to drill holes in 16 x 16 plates.

The holes need to be where the arrows are pointing.  Those are in 16 x 16 plates.

Thus I redid the plate implementation.  Instead of 16 x 16 plates, I used a combination of different plates to create 1 x 1 hole underneath the two front towers.  The picture below shows how the reinforcement on the bottom has changed.  The arrows point to where the hole is.

 This will allows for wires to run up  the tower and then across the ceiling of the conference room and the briefing room.  Since LED controllers will be installed in the towers to power up the two generators, this will allows to the briefing room to go from red to white on a periodic basis. 

Building Can Be a Messy Process

 

Well this picture kind of shows that sometimes I can not be as organized as I would like.  But some people say that is part of the creative process.  At least none of this was on the floor, would not want to have a Lego minefield to walk through.😄

Main Entrance Rebuild - Part ONE

To move the doors as discussed previously, this entire module will need to be rebuilt.  While I am add it, I decided to also redo the wiring as much as possible.  So lets get started.

First I took lots of pictures of the module from all angles. Mostly I needed to make sure that I keep the dimensions the same and that all interface to other modules remain the same.

Then I started removing in the biggest chunks possible of the top structure.  

Until this was left.

And this is the bottom side view.

While the blue base plate was a good solution at the time, it did not provide enough support.  So I changed it to this.

While this design provides much better support, it is not the final version.  I am still working on power distribution throughout the module.  So I suspect this is going to change.  This is made up of two 16 x 16 plates on the front of the module and then two more on the back.  Then there are two 6 x 16 plates in the center.  Unless I want to drill through these plates, some things will have to change.

Doors on Main Entrance - A Beginning

 

The Blacktron Logo has always been on door that was suppose to open.  In this case the doors were on hinges and would swing open to the back.  The door had to be at least two plates thick, the color tiles to form the logo and the backing plate.  As precise as the Lego pieces are, this was never going to work. AS the doors open, they crash into each other as the prototype shows.

That meant that the doors were going to have to slide apart.  That also means that they will have to move back for that to happen.  And finally, that means a rebuild of this module.  This was always going to happen for other reasons.  

This is the first attempt at making sliding doors. Right now only one side is connected.  The simple implementation would be two motors, but I want to see what I can do to reduce down to one motor.  

In order for this to fit in the current storage box, this is going to have to be an attachment in some form.  That will come from the module rebuild.  

For now here is a short video showing the one side working.

 

 

 

A Different Configuration

 I have been looking at different configurations, some of it driven by the weight /table issue.  Also to just change up the appearance of the display.  This configuration entails placing the entrance module at the corner of an L-shaped table arrangement, facing out over the table corner.  Then a two new modules will turn 45 degrees followed by the two long extensions of the hangers, dining area, maintenance control, bar, etc., to then run down the two tables.  

One idea is this will put the large weight of the entrance module on the corner over the legs of the table.  This should give it more support.  While this will not completely solve the table sag issue, it should provide some relief.

The first order of business was locating the relative postion of the entrance module and the next module in the line.  These three pictures show the idea that the front of the modules would line up.  The 45 degree turn would happen at the entrance module.  For this to happen, would require that the entire slice (front module, cliff and hanger) would have to slide back.  This is in the last two pictures.  There is still an extension to the plateau that is not installed.  

This did not make any sense.  Next attempt was to slide the slice forward.  Making the back of the hanger platform even with the back of the entrance module.  This leads to the turn happening somewhere in the middle of this new joint.  The next set of three pictures shows this arrangement.

These pictures show the iterative approach of finding the correct place for the hinge joint that will hold the turn together.  This connector piece I wanted to cover the space between he cliff and the front of the display.  If I had been more diligent about putting more of the display into Studio, I might have been able to design this in studio.  But that did not happen.  So it is trial and error to find the best fit.  What you can see here is that this provide a large flat surface to deal with.  And right now I have no idea what would go there.

While I have not tried this, I suspect the cliff and module will merge into one piece.  This will fit where the open diamond space is.  This will be more like one of the cliff connectors and there will be some storage space, small work shop, power distribution, etc.

 

The small observation stand that is attached to the main module may have to change.  You can see this in the above picture.  This is a plug in module, so changing this is not a big deal.  It probably will be modified to connect to whatever the diamond shape object becomes.

This is probably as far as I am going to take this for now.  I am looking at adding two to four more transportation boxes to accommodate this.  While I like this configuration, in some venues this will take up a lot of floor space and will require a lot railing to go around an L shaped table setup.  If it is part of an existing setup, the typical box configuration with tables on all sides, then seeing the back is difficult. 

New Year 2025

 

Break time is over.  We wish all of you a Happy New Year for 2025.

So what did not happen last year that I wanted to do.  But It looks like only one thing did not really get done.

• I need to revisit my solar panel on the outdoor shed

Here are the upcoming topics and plans through at least May.

• First Module needs a new motor, the big Power Functions motor is to power hungry
  
• More detailing: pictures, screens, signs, etc etc
  
• Get the large door to work on the Main Entrance
• Start the people mover
• Update the ongoing war with the Flash Aliens that inhabit the dwarf planet
• Look at a new layout that is a 90 degree bend
  
• Lego Conventions this year
  
• Android updates
• Train updates
• Update all the electronic projects

Once again this sounds like a lot of work for someone retired.😋

So I guess I better get started!