SR6 Beta Sneak Peek (Patreon)

Hi Guys,

This is the long awaited, long promised, first look at SR6 Beta. A new design that I am very excited to be sharing with you all!

I have to say that over the last year I have been very surprised by the popularity of SR6. When I first released it I considered it to be a designer’s self-indulgence rather than something that a significant portion of my userbase would want to build. All I can say is I was pleasantly surprised.

So here it is! SR6 Beta is clean-sheet redesign of the SR6 Alpha base and enclosure, which was always a stopgap design. For now I am keeping the linkages and receiver (regular or twist) unchanged. I’m pleased to be able to show you some pictures of the first prototype. This is also my first foray into product photography, so please be gentle!

The first big difference that you’ll see when you look at the Beta is that I’ve gotten rid of the sharp edges. The Alpha was basically a box, whereas on the Beta there are no 90-degree corners near the moving arms. I consider this to be very important, especially for any users who are interacting with this device whilst blindfolded by a VR headset.

I’ve also made an effort to hide the working parts of this device as much as possible, which means fewer exposed bolt heads and servos. I’ve also redesigned the pitch arms as well so that they fit seamlessly into the enclosure and never present a gap that a finger or any other object could accidentally get trapped in.

The biggest changes however are not visible from the outside. To see these we can quickly remove the lid from the base - a radical departure from SR6 Alpha! Inside we can see that SR6 Beta is designed around a removable two-part frame, into which the six servos are mounted. The idea is that either half of this frame can easily be detached from the base and pulled out, allowing any one of the servos to be accessed easily. All of the servo mounting bolts screw into nuts in this design, rather than into the plastic, which was a widely requested change.

The biggest design problem with SR6 Alpha was always how it went together, and I think that this change represents an enormous improvement!

One feature i have kept with SR6 Beta is the tray, onto which the electronics are mounted. As with Alpha this is located between the lower two main servos. Naturally I am keeping the ESP32 tray, which I released recently for this, but the physical dimensions have not changed so any old tray should still be compatible.

So there you have it!

I have several features that you will not see on this prototype that I will be adding for the release files. In particular, I want to add mounts for a cooling fan and the power bus on/off switch, and possibly an I2C display screen. It will be possible to locate the power switch on the top right face of the machine, just like on the OSR2. The other thing I will be adding is a port and securing arrangement for the twist and T-valve harness.

One last thing. If you are looking to upgrade your SR6 to a Beta when the files are released you should be able to re-use all of your bolts from the SR6 Alpha. The only extras that you will need are the 5x M4x16 bolts  (+ M4 nuts) that are used to secure the frame to the base.

Thanks for your patience guys! We’re nearly there!