I have had a few inquiries on how I was able to make my torso "whip" around as Bob May did in the Lost in Space series. What I did was first ask Andy Schwartz (an approved B9 vendor) to make a supersized waist gear so I could get an increase in RPM from the 24v Dewert motor to accomplish this. Thinking of the consequences of such a design I had to ensure safety for the visitors as well as for my robot. So I had James build in a spring loaded retaining mechanism to allow the gear to "skip" or "break away" if the robot were to meet any resistance (presumably from striking any object in the robots rotational path). It is tricky getting the right tension for the "break away" mechanism to function reliably because you also have to overcome the force to actually whip the torso around while "stalling" when hitting a stationary object. Added to that; the tension relief needed to install the torso gear to the leg section can be a challenge. One way I thought of overcoming the install issue is to have a special tool made to pull the gear out of position. I will work more on that later on in the build .
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