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Pleo Stuff => Pleo Archives => Archive -- General => Topic started by: mlbelanger on January 18, 2013, 01:54:22 PM

Title: Neck Repair in Southern California
Post by: mlbelanger on January 18, 2013, 01:54:22 PM

Greetings Everyone,

I'm a new Pleo owner but I have years of experience in movie animatronics and robotics. I'm looking to try my hand at Pleo repair and I'm looking for anyone interested in having a neck repair done. Since I'm just starting out with Pleos I'm more interested in the experience right now as opposed to profit, so for a limited time if you cover the shipping to and from Long Beach, CA and pay for supplies (cable, connectors, etc) I'll do the repair work at no extra charge.

If you're interested send me a private message on the forum and we'll make arrangements.

Michael

Title: Re: Neck Repair in Southern California
Post by: InmemoryofRomeo on January 18, 2013, 02:58:52 PM

Be sure to add some videos and/or pictures to our neck repair thread if you find a suitable victim, I mean, patient ;) Good luck :) It's actually not that scary in there and if I can repair a neck anyone with a bit of sense can lol. Tis fascinating though.

Fancyfont may be interested for Peeky, but I'm not sure if she's just decided she loves him too much as he is :) He was a therapy dino for a while :)

Title: Re: Neck Repair in Southern California
Post by: nicholasljy123 on January 18, 2013, 11:47:52 PM

Great! I can finally turn to someone for help other than Innvo should any neck problem happen to my pleo.

Title: Re: Neck Repair in Southern California
Post by: fancyfont on January 19, 2013, 08:05:30 AM

Peeky is just Peeky, now! ;) IMR is correct. I love this little dino,broken neck and all. If his neck were to be fixed and he had new skin put on, he just wouldn't be Peeky anymore. At least I can spot Peeky right off the bat! ;D I would, definitely, take advantage over this, generous, offer to fix him if he were a younger pleo.

More details...

Title: Re: Neck Repair in Southern California
Post by: zetathix on February 08, 2013, 08:38:48 AM

I love animatronic! That's real deal.  8)

Sorry if this is bothering you. Could you tell me that possible to replicate Pleo's skin with better material such as really soft silicone? Now I'm curious to make one but it's too complicate...for now.  :(

Title: Re: Neck Repair in Southern California
Post by: mlbelanger on February 08, 2013, 12:56:34 PM

Zeathix, I'm doing some research into high-quality silicone compounds that are used in the Hollywood visual effects industry to make the skins for long-term animatronic installations (like the ones in a theme park for instance) as opposed to the ones that only have to last a couple of months for a movie production.

The best product would be a silicone that uses palladium as the catalyst instead of tin as they are less corrosive over time and would tend to break down less.  But so far I haven't found a palladium silicone that has a light-enough weight and stretchiness required for animatronic skin.  If I can find one this seems to be the way to go for any custom Pleo skins in the future but of course the molding process is VERY complicated so I'm not sure if it would ever be cost effective.

I did notice my latest Pleo seems to have a different skin quality to my other two Ugobes so it seems the thermoplastic elastomer used by the company has changed over time.

Title: Re: Neck Repair in Southern California
Post by: zetathix on February 09, 2013, 05:36:23 AM

All I have know now is Smooth-On and MouldLife, but all are available only tin and titanium. I think titanium maybe the best for now. But doesn't see any of palladium. Wow.. If you're saying about palladium, That must expensive for sure. Really rare...  :'(

Title: Re: Neck Repair in Southern California
Post by: mlbelanger on February 09, 2013, 10:01:28 AM

titanium would definitely be less self-corrosive and prone to breaking down over time.  Apparently those higher-quality silicones are used for denser materials however.  I haven't yet determined if that's something innate to the chemistry or just that denser silicones are normally used for molds to make softer pieces, more disposable pieces with so they are expected to last a lot longer.

Title: Re: Neck Repair in Southern California
Post by: mlbelanger on February 09, 2013, 10:04:59 AM

Oh and I think the really high-end palladium or platinum types are mainly used in dentistry where the product has to be as non-toxic as possible to be used to make molds inside the mouth.