Robot Flyder Light (Roboticea Volans Aranea Metallicus Illuminatus)

WARNING: IF YOU DON'T LIKE CREEPY CRAWLIES OR ROBOTS, BEST TO PROBABLY MOVE ON AND MAKE SOMETHING ELSE!

If it hadn't been for a simple failure, a coffee dispenser sending a message to Supplies that it had run out of milk, the deep space survey ship, Galactic Eye, and its crew would almost certainly have reached Letsnotgothere IV in relative safety. As it was, a simple programming error in the coffee dispenser algorithm meant the message got sent to Surprize!, the emergency landing protocol that meant Galactic Eye headed for the nearest habitable planet on the grounds that any landing is better than floating in space forever.

For the majority of the crew, this turned out to be a fallacy. With the ship disabled on landing, the crew quickly found out that the planet was already inhabited and, three weeks later, only one crew member was left alive, the sole baby on board. She was too young to know if the metal lifeforms, powered by electrical energy, were dangerous or even that they were alien. But she was about to learn...

To be continued...

OK, for all you creepy crawly lovers or creepy crawly haters who ignored the warning, let's get on with the show! The concept originally came from wanting to create a mechanoid spider light to use as a wall light. There were no plans made, it was a case of finding suitable objects to base the piece on. The steps shown are more a story of its creation and development rather than a step-by-step guide of where to drill a hole or add a bolt. I hope it will give others ideas of the process of just seeing how you can create something without knowing exactly what it will end up like. Just go with the flow!

As with many of my other projects, this then developed from a few rough drawings as I found bits to add, ending up mutating into a flying spider- a flyder (Latin Name: Roboticea Volans Aranea Metallicus). And all because I saw some salad/spaghetti tongs that looked like wings!

I did however plan on using a round metal conduit box as the body, so it wasn't all random. These come in two sizes, 20mm and 25mm, and a variety of shapes. For this project, I used a 25mm 2-way through conduit box with a lid. The one I bought was made from zinc-coated cast metal and is bombproof. However, I've also seen some aluminium ones which look like they are better cast and will also be easier to work., but maybe less bombproof

Supplies Needed:

25mm round single metal conduit box and cover plate

3 or 4 pairs of bent pliers (depending whether you want 6 legs or 8 legs) I used miniature needle, bent and round/circlip pliers, the cheapest I could find- quality isn't an issue!

Brass bayonet connection (BC) lamp holder. An Edison Screw (ES) lamp holder might be too big without modifying the design, but that's your choice.

Mains switch (if needed- see later electrical instructions)

Flex: 3-core 6A rated

LED Bulb

Spaghetti Tongs (used for wings so look for as winglike as possible)

Plug (with 3A fuse if UK)

Cabochon Eyes (sometimes called Dragon Eyes)

Plus the most important bits- anything I've forgotten to add in here

It's probably best to collect together the pliers and make the legs first- you will need these to decide where to drill the holes for them in the main body. I used two each side to get eight legs in total. I used bent pliers for the front legs and some longer needle type pliers for the rear legs. The rear pliers I bent by heating them up first with a blowtorch and then bending them to the needed shape. However, you can use the same pliers all the way around, it all depends on the look you want. Originally I did use just bent pliers but felt the back legs looked too short- a bit like my own human ones. but easier to replace if they look wrong.

Then just hacksaw off the handles close to the joint and drill a hole through the centre of the joint to use for bolting them to the body. I use a 4mm drill as I've deiced to use M4 nuts and bolts as the main standard size for my creations.

Is it just me, or does that bottom view of the legs look like the parasite from Alien? I'm definitely not putting it near my face just in case, plus who wants to go around all day with a mains cable coming out of their mouth?

The drawing shows the construction of the eyes, using generally available fittings. Because it mutated from a spider it had multiple eyes, but you can decide yourself how many eyes and whether forward facing or side on. If you've never heard of cabochon eyes, as I hadn't before I started making these type of things that go bump in the night, they are a round flat-backed glass lens with an eye photo bonded on the back. They do a whole range of eyes in different sizes- serpents, snakes, dragons, aliens, even realistic human eyes. They can be just glued on where needed. Feel free to take a photo of your own and use that if you want to really make it personally creepy! Be warned though, it didn't turn out too great for Vincent Price, but that was so last century.

The side view shows also that I tend to use dome headed nuts a lot. They give a good classic mechanical look, but also stop any catchy bits with normal nuts or exposed threads. The bolts I use are also generally brass, both for the look and also because they are easy to file/cut to length if needed.

Now it's time for the body! It's best to fit the lamp holder and whatever is going in to the front head bit first. Then, you can see where to add the other bits so holes, nuts and bolts, etc. don't clash. You will also notice that the side pieces on the conduit box are longer than on the finished flyder. I made both shorter, using a hacksaw first and then, in the case of the lamp holder side, a bench grinder to shape it to fit the position of the lamp holder at the rear.

I used a lamp holder with a standard 10mm thread and shortened the conduit box arm in order to use a brass surface mount base. However, depending on what you have handy, you can use a short length of suitably threaded hollow rod with a washer and nut inside. This rod is specially available for light fitting, but make sure it is the right thread for your lamp holder. Modern light holders usually come in M10 and M12 fine thread, older ones in 3/8". All will be ok to use, just make sure that the threads are all compatible on the fittings. You will need to get fine thread nuts for the threaded rod, not normally available M10/M12 nuts as they will usually be coarse thread.

It's worth mentioning at this stage about potentially using a switched lamp holder if you want to be able to switch it on and off on the light body or not. I'll get back to this later though in wiring.

In addition to this being a light, I also wanted it to do something else, though I wasn't really sure what. I did initially think about putting a clock in the front but then I came across AC voltmeters which fit exactly. I simply wired this in parallel across the lamp holder. However, it also gave me something to slide a vinyl doll's head over. LOOK AWAY NOW IF SQUEAMISH OR SKIP TO THE NEXT STEP! I simply pulled the head off a cheap doll and cut a suitably sized hole in the back of the head- I did the doll's trepanning with trepidation. It just then pushes on.

As for why it is showing 247v when we are supposed to have a 230v supply here? In the UK, the declared voltage is 230v but the tolerance is -6% to +10%,which goes higher than most people probably realise. None of your wimpy 110v diet-lite AC here, this is full-strength, give them a good thump if they mess with it AC! Plus I would never have known the voltage was 247v if it hadn't been for my handy flyder voltmeter, forever ignorant of the vagaries of the public AC supply.

The final stage before wiring is simply bolting the bits together in appropriate places. The legs attach to the base, the eyes are then attached to the top lid of the conduit junction box. At this stage you have a Robot Spider (Latin Name: Mechanica Aranea Roboticea). To mutate it it needs wings- I found a cheap pair of salad/spaghetti tongs (similar to those shown) in a local shop and cut the ends off. I'm sure there are spatulas that will also work. The wings have a rubber washer beneath them so they can be repositioned for landing or going hypersonic!

Unless you understand and know what you are doing, then you have hit the end of the road. GET SOME ONE WHO DOES KNOW HOW TO SAFELY CONNECT MAINS AND TEST IT TO COMPLETE IT - mains voltages are not to be messed with and have been known to seriously mess up some people' s day.

Ok, so this is obviously just a normal light switch and bulb circuit. If you are going to use a switch, then this can either be using a switched lamp holder or separate, either an inline switch in the lead or, as I did, a suitable switch put into the side of the main body. The switch can be seen on the side- it's actually a small black mains rotary switch with pre-attached leads. However, if you do use a switched lamp holder it will only switch the lamp on and off, not the voltmeter as well. The really important thing though is to use 6A three core flex for power as well as earth. Because this is a metal body, for safety reasons it's important that the metal is earthed (but you knew that if you are reading this section because you know what you are doing!). It should also be fused with a 3A fuse in the plug if in the UK. Did I mention that the UK plugs are the best in the world?

Before switching on do a meter check on it to make sure the earth is connected and there are no shorts to earth from live or neutral.

The bulb used should be an LED one as it is bare and you really don't want it getting too hot for obvious reasons. The one I used is more for decoration at 2.5w but still makes a good background light. Made by TCP, it has a really interesting fake filament made by little bubbles in a perspex bottom lit tube, similar to the one shown.

Finally, did I also mention you shouldn't do the wiring unless you understand how not to electrocute yourself?

In the end, it turned out that the crew all died from natural causes from drinking dodgy coffee, if you can call a flawed coffee machine a natural cause. I suppose it is if you fly around the universe in an intergalactic spacecraft with a dodgy coffee maker?

The only member on board who didn't drink coffee though survived. The crying baby was found alive by a female flyder whose parental instincts took over. The baby thrived and grew up living happily ever after with the flyders, which turned out to be very bright and made great companions, especially at night. And what human child wouldn't love to fly on a flyder? Eventually the baby grew up and even had a child of their own, hence the family resemblance in the final photo, but that's another story!