Description
Sales Copy:
Cybot Galactica is proud to announce the latest addition to it's acclaimed line of B series industrial assistant droids: The B5 Prospector! Whether you're performing mining operations on Corvus or mineral surveys on Subterrel, the B5 will get the job done.
Following the success of the B2 and B3, the B5 Prospector is a refinement of the Cybot Galactica formula: Durable, Maintainable, and Sociable. The B5 comes equipped with a plated durasteel shell that can withstand that harshest environments. Whether you're dealing with rockfalls, mining charges, or acid raid, the B5 can shrug it off with ease.
In the event something does happen to your B5, you can rest easy knowing that it uses our standard droid component systems. Replacement parts and full kits are available everywhere the Cybot Galactica droid are found, from the core worlds to the outer rim.
As with the rest of the B series droid,, the B5 Prospector come equipped with a simplified version of our TranLang III vocalizer. You'll find that the B5 isn't just indispensible in the field, it also makes an excellent companion on those long-haul trips to the edge of the galaxy.
Contact your nearest Cybot Galactica authorized reseller today!
History:
The B5 prospector was not a successful droid. Development was rushed and engineers pulled most of the components from high-end military or luxury products, so initial pricing was far too high for the freelance prospector market. The few that were sold quickly became targets for pirates. The B5 project was eventually abandoned by Cybot Galactica, and the surplus inventory was parted out.
For the few individuals who managed to get their hands on a complete B5 after the initial wave of piracy, the droid is a one-of-a-kind treasure. They don't have the mechanical aptitude of an astromech or the raw power of a binary load lifter, but the B5 more than makes up for it in flexibility.
With just a little modification, a B5 unit can perform just about any role required for an off-the-grid expedition. An upgraded laser drill can turn a unit into a serviceable sentry or guard droid. Swapping the vocalizer out for a protocol droid unit allows the B5 to act as a local guide and translator. For most crews, just letting the droid operate past the recommended memory wipe period would lead to huge improvements in personality and autonomy.
If asked to choose, most freelancer crews would prefer to lose their ship than to lose a longtime B5 crewmate.
From the Designer:
I spent entirely too much time on this design. My initial sketches used ball joints, linear actuators, and NEMA 17 steppers for motion control, but it ended up being far too complicated to work out the kinematics once I transitioned the design to CAD. I iterated on the ideas a few times and gradually simplified it to the design presented here.
The design goal for the droid (other than the requirements of the contest) was to create a walking droid that could pack itself into a neat container. On the practical side, I wanted every joint to be functional and include adjustable friction, so the model could be statically posed. I also decided to design the model at roughly 1/3rd scale, since that would give me a lot more design freedom without requiring me to split parts.
I also wanted build something reasonably complex while still being printable and using as few different hardware components as possible. The final design uses 140 M3 bolts, 140 M3 square nuts, and 17 unique 3D printed components (...but 98 total components, due to reuse). I also managed to keep the dimensions of every printed part within a 200mm cube, to allow easy printing on most hobby-grade printers.
(Note: I decided to only include bolts in the Fusion file in places where they would be easily visible in the render, to cut down the number of repeated elements)
My own judgement of the design is that it's a little more complicated than I'd like, but I'm really happy with the component designs themselves. Everything is printable with overhang angles under 45 degrees (excluding the features for nuts and bolts), and all of the bearing surfaces can be printed in line with the bearing plane of motion. My biggest disappointment is that I wasn't able to devise a way to tighten the joints without fully disassembling some parts of the droid. I'm hoping that the bearings can be tightened to allow repositioning without sagging.
There is definitely some refinement that could still be done, and more greebling could be added to enhance the detail, but I'm pretty happy with the fidelity of the model as-is. I also suspect that there is a way to reduce the part count by using custom ball joints on the legs instead of the bearing-hinge assembly, but that's a design exercise for another day.