TL, DR--I made some arms for Alternators Rumble, and painted one blue. Ok, I'm a die-hard Honda fan, so when alternators Rumble came out, I was pretty stoked. But WHAT THE HECK was with the arms? Pile drivers? Only Pile drivers? Really? So I had purchased an extra Alternators Grimlock to some how make attachable arms but Alternators kinda went out of style so I let the project sit to pursue 'whatever the next thing was' at the time. Flash forward to ~2019, and I was hitting the sketchbook again, this time with the intent to somehow make the arms transform. I decided I would give myself bonus points if there was some way to still use the pile drivers with the new design. Adding fuel to the fire: A buddy of mine had gotten one of the newer 3D printers, and I was like "if I pay you, will you a do a test print" and a couple weeks later I had some prototypes in hand. Although these were great, I had fixes and changes to make and the pandemic hit, so back to Shapeways. A couple months rolled by and and I iterated the design once. BUT in Sept 2020 I finally purchased a printer, and that really started to fast-track the project. I was able to iterate the design very rapidly...what once took months took less than a week..to make a servicable design. Note the light grey arm on the left. That's the first test print. The next one to the right is the Shapeways print (the tree is top left) and the remaining 4 are printed on my own printer. In parallel, I had found a used Alternators Rumble that I wanted to repaint as Frenzy. It has to be a Honda blue... Here is a series of images that clearly show the transformation of the arm. This is the Shapeways design. It's interesting how much the filament 3D printed design differs from the Shapeways version..it actually ended up being sturdier and simpler. The big difference? The use of small steel pins, much like modern Legends-sized transformers are using nowadays... Filp in the hand, unfurl the forearm and wrap it around to make a box. Rotate it so it can travel up and down the pile-driver channel..voila! Transformable Rumble (Frenzy?) arm. It's up to you guys to decide if I achieved my bonus points...you simply take off the hands and plug the pile drivers onto the end now! It's pretty simple, and in many ways their crouch position looks more natural, IMHO. The springs are still in there, and although the arm doesn't slide quite as freely as the pile driver, it still works! What's that shakin? The rest of the project is a straight-up repaint. I did have some issues with tolerances and paint chipping. But I'm very happy with the blue. Suzuka International Racing Course (the original Honda test track) I actually made a second one for a friend of mine, and I actually made the box! This was done largely with photo-editing. Note how one of the shots on the underside of the box shows the hand installed!!! For a VERY brief time, I actually had 2 in hand! That's about all for now guys, thanks for having a look!
This is absolutely amazing. Love what you’ve done here….had this been around back then, you could have made a fortune selling these. And that paintwork? Very nice. Love the shade of blue. Great to see some Alternator love again on the front pages too.
Of course, I was about to post, but @plowking captured my thoughts precisely. That said, there are still those of us who would like to have them arms
Many thanks...definitely a passion project for me, as I know Alternators are passe...but very nice to see some fans still. Thanks so much guys. Really? Do you guys actually still have your Alternators? I was starting to think I was one of the few guys that still own them... Lolzzz...
^^^ Fair enough! Ok well I've put the design up on Cults in case anyone wants to print out a set...I may also do a very small run of 1-2 sets and offer them for sale (they are not easy to mass produce, so I'm going to try and avoid making a print farm from my lowly Ender 3 Pro ) Any way here is the link: Download STL file Custom Arms for Alternators Rumble/Frenzy • 3D print model ・ Cults
Sorry to bump my own thread, but just wanted to let people know I have 2 arm kits for sale here (in case you don't have a printer) Echotransformers parts and stuff for sale - check for updates
