Growing up I was a big fan of micro machines and of course robots. 4 or 5 years back I decided to make a combiner mech with these figures but as time went on it sat on the side. I decided now was the time to get started on it. Here is the team members I opted to use. I considered twins of all the designs to be symmetrical but decided to follow the theme of 80s robots that had a special color for each team member. I originally planned on using a frame arms as the basis. The feet actually clipped on perfectly but as I started building it I found he was a little short and too thin to work as a base. I would had lost most of the articulation and had to build up a lot of mass to make it mesh. I went through my bots in the customs bin then my recent collection to find one that worked better. I had a siege ratchet that seemed perfect but I didn’t want to cut him up. I opted to go get a siege ironhide as a base since Walmart’s had him on sale for $10. Or so it seemed. I could. It find any locally and online the figure went up in price. Luckily I found a local that had one.
I want to use a different head but not a tf head so I’m going to stay with frame arms. I have a couple heads and they have add on Heads you can buy. I then sort of placed things where I planned on combining them to see how they work. The next step was to strip down as much as I could to see how I wanted to proceed. I decided I didn’t want to cut parts if I didn’t need to and found by flipping the arms and rotating the torso I had a better way to peg on the tank and can keep the cab for vehicle/base mode. This also lends this mold to making other sorts of tf characters in the future. Vehicle mode will be the trickiest. I want this to be like a support vehicle or base for the other bots. Originally when I was using frame arms I was going to ignore the robot bits for their vehicle modes but now I have an opportunity to design something. I am going to aim for making it sort of an airship but I’ll have to see how much I can aide the imagination.
At one point I was going to cut the feet and rely on it’s peg hole to connect to the part I would make inside the mm she’ll. I noticed the feet were not pinned in and popped off so I started on a new plan which visually looks better too. I 3D printed a test part. I need to calibrate my printer but I may still come up with another pin solution. Here is a sketch of the new ankle design I need to make and print and how I plan on making the insides of the mm shells so they can combine. The neck ball is too small for the frame arms heads. I found a couple layers of heat shrink fills the 1mm difference and provides some resistance due to the material. Here is the initial test fit of a head on the neck joint and the tank chest. In this position it keeps all articulation. Now I need to calibrate my printer and make the inner workings of all the shells for the next stage.
Thanks guys. Another update. Got my msg heads in. The one I plan on using is the only one of the 4 in the kit that had the same ball joint size on the neck as ironhide did so I can toss the heat shrink filler. I also calibrated my printer and can make parts again. Got the frame for the tank chest designed but I want to make a new peg.
This is fantastically fun. I had forgotten about these guys, even though I loved them as a kid. I think you can get a lot done if you turn Ironhide into a "dropship"... especially since you can put him into Ratchet's "repair bay" mode and have that be some kind of, uh, repair bay.
Not only am I super excited and interested to see where this is going, all I can think looking at Ironhide is that he looks like you could make him into a Sentai style shuttle. Had to google it, but I believe it was called the Light Speed Solar Zord. Nice big chunky rectangular shuttle design, I dunno, just thought it could help with figuring out where you're gonna redesign the big vehicle mode.
That’s a good reference. I may be able to come up with something like that. I’d like the wings to be able to fold flat enough around the legs. We’ll have to see how well my 3D printer works. I deal with some messing with code and a filament jam today. It seems to be back up and running now. thanks everyone else for the kind words. I’ve always wished mm had robots. If I can pull this off I might play with a few other concepts. I’ve designed some more parts but now I need to make my test prints. I’ve also played with allowing the parts to reconfigure. Not sure I want to over engineer this project though.
Small update. I spent a lot of time considering the ankles. Part of the trouble is that there is not a lot of space to work with inside these micro machines compared to the quality of item I can print. I was considering adding a forward/backward ankle tilt but only added a rotation at this phase. I may go back and revisit this solution but I’m going with what I got currently. Here you can see the inner workings off the foot. Due to space I’m using a lego peg as a connector. I wanted to make it retract but most likely I will come up with storage for it. And here is with the MM cover on the foot. The other leg is just resting so now I can print it since it works.
Super update combine! BTW I’m posting a lot more updates on my IG story. This is sort of highlights. I likely spent more time on this part than I should but I wanted it to work. With the limitations of how good my printer can print i was looking at using LEGO pegs but ultimately made something that worked and retracted. I may redo the feet with this so I get more ankle articulation. I still had to use a finger drill and some tools to get this to snap together just right. now the peg can retract and firmly attach to the mech. I can also get some high kicks with the current ankles. I also have all of the main shells done so all the primary MM can now combine. I have the limbs in a CMYK arrangement and will likely give them names based on that. So far I have not cut on ironhide. I can return the figure to original form if I decided to bail. So now is when I need to decide what to do. I like it as is but I still have a couple others I considered installing. I’ll spend some time deciding on if I want the shins or not and if I do how to make them connect.
Thanks. I’ve gotten into some challenging parts of this project. Adding the shin vehicles has been a challenge. Partly due to my inexperience with 3D printing. Here you can see I make a gap filler with a bar that goes down the side of the leg. This then comes back up. Currently it is multiple pieces so I’m trying to come up with the best ways to keep it slim and connect it. I’ll also need to add a peg so the vehicle has a connecting port. The idea is it slides out to allow the leg to transform and slides inside. In the mean time while going thru my parts collection to find wings I discovered he already had some. So here is the basis of the alt mode. I will be adding a tail fin and using his old feet which will parts form into a weapon. lastly I played with some base mode configurations. I was hoping to have this done quick but it had given me some new design challenges. Once I finalize the shin connectors I’ll start making parts to refine the jet mode.
Thanks. I think it’s starting to come together. I now have the shin connectors design. I need to make a couple tweaks on the other side since there is a peg size difference. And here is the shin armor connected. I think I’m going to maybe still revise the ankle some. I need some forward and back adjustment. Then I can look at the add ons for the weapon.
