Description
| | || ||| From the archived Datalogs of Industrial Automation ||| || | |
The prototype RL-Series of “Astromech” test droids or as it’s been referred to internally as “Speedermech” droids informally, is one of the many carry over projects from before the merger of Industrial Intelligence and Automata Galactica into the Industrial Automation we know today, at least... from a certain point of view.
They are a long standing project to address two consistent customer requests from across the Holonet.
Those being as followed.
“Why can’t they just put a repulsorlift into one of these astromechs?”
And
“Can you make these astromechs go faster?”
These requests would initially seem outlandish considering Astromechs are primarily designed to perform maintenance on starships. But are metrics have shown that are astromech series droids are increasingly being used all across the galaxy for a variety of different roles both stellar and terrestrial.
So there is a clear desire from customers for a more terrestrial alternative.
Design inspiration of RL-Series
On a datapad the answer to both questions would be a resounding YES… ignoring cost. But as the goal is to make the droids as affordable as possible and capable to manufacture in large quantities this is not realistic. There was one major problem and that would be power consumption from the repulsorlift engine itself significantly reducing available power for the droid’s brain and the only solution being much more expensive fuel cells.
However... we managed to source a supplier for a very reliable and low powered Repulsorlift engine that more or less solved this issue though... further refinements would be welcomed. This newer cheaper repulsorlift engine comes at a significant cost however… That being this engine is incapable of allowing the droid execute a “Neutral turn” (turning while staying in the same spot), and can only be angled forwards and backwards for front and back movement respectively. In order to address this one of are engineers during testing had the idea to attach a single mono-wheel from another project to at least give the poor droid the ability to turn itself around.
The results were shocking to say the least! With the mono-wheel adding rotation and improved stability to the droid it was now free to divert most of its repulsorlift fields backwards for significantly boosted forward thrust. Further refinements to the droids chassis later and the droid is now capable of angling the entire emitter further backwards while lowering it’s dome to a more aerodynamic position to allow the droid to be quite possibly one of the fastest droids we may have ever built! Well on land at least…
RL-4L's Droid Functions
RL-4L uses a low power repulsorlift leg in place of a usual astromechs legs in tandem with a single powered mono-wheel connected to the droids chassis with a unique bi-directional ratchet gear to achieve extremely fast speed as well as reduce wear and tear from traversing uneven terrain.
The droid can increase it's speed further by angling the emitter back and rotating it's Dome lift platform down by about 20 degrees to increase it's aerodynamics and use it's "Speeder mode".
The dome lift platform allows the droid to move it's dome up and down with a 40 degree axis of rotation.
RL-4L can't rotate independently so it uses it's mono-wheel to rotate in a stationary position and when in Speeder mode it slows the speed of the repulsrlift to turn left and reduces the speed of the wheel to turn right similar to a treaded tank.
The ratchet gear assembly also has a reinforced bar to allow the droid to tow small cargo.
The droid's chassis has a standard issue scomp link in one of its many compartments for tools. Though due to the droids unique design requirements the amount of compartments had to be reduced from a typical astromech's many compartments.
Example being that part of the ratchet wheel had to be removed in order to connect lights to the main chassis.
The droid's dome is also equipped with twin long range binocular photoreceptors for the purpose of surveying large stretches of land as well as a small short range photo receptor to see up close, as well as two twin antennas for longer range communications.
Conclusion
While RL-4L's performance has been exceptional further testing is still necessary in harsher conditions across the Galaxy to ensure reliability before we consider mass production.
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Designer's note:
It should be possible to make RL-4L's main body actually levitate using a set of neodymium magnets either inside the emitter foot or at the bottom of the chassis above a hidden magnetic base depending on the 3d prints weight distribution.
I first found out about the contest from Adam Savage's tested video about it 2 weeks ago so I didn't have as much time as I would have like to have had to work on RL-4L. But I hope you all enjoy looking at this droids face! In case it wasn't clear from the datalog the mismatched color of the droid's wheel is intentional and is a bit of a reference to C3P0's silver leg. Also I'm not sure if I was allowed to use the Industrial Automation decal instead of the other ones (I made it using fusion for the record) but well... in the words of Lord Vader "I am altering the deal, Pray I don't alter it any further."