The king returns

Aleksandr's back in the office and is greeted with laughs, smiles and amused comments...

Pimped 2.0?

Aleksandr's been opened up again in an attempt to reduce his fat-neck. His range and ease of motion is much improved but the PIR sensor doesn't give the desired effect. Let's face it; with the 3 or 4 hours spent on it, cobbled together from parts from my junk draw; he's not going to be perfect! The PIR sensor triggers the motion  OK but the servo really needs to be told to return fully the other way. What it needs is a microcontroller to properly command the servo (and increase the range), switch the LED eyes and do some more sophisticated behaviour.

Should I volunteer?

News has spread!

With the increase in publicity now for the meerkats, it was only a matter of time before a real pimp appeared on the scene. Meet Marvin...the backstreet pimp from Brixton. Marvin has spent 2 years on the pimping scene cashing in on meerkat trafficcing. he has been known to break into wildlife parks. There is a rumour of an association with the meerkat dating agency: http://www.meerkatmatch.com/ however that is all speculation and has never been proven. It's fair to say Marvin should be approached with caution - he's a dangerous fellow. Don't let the "Blue Oyster club" look fool you.

Marvin is also proud to show off his scars. He has been in many 'bloody' fights with rival pimps. Once he was slashed with a knife from neck to belly button - you can make out the scar in the picture below. He also has another sideline of selling Bonsai weed. Now this has never been proven to be a drug of any reasonable recreational value, however he seems to be making quite a profit from it on the streets. I checked with the local constabulary and Bonsai weed is not on the class A,B or C list of drugs. In fact they classifed it as Z status - which is ironic really because that matched his celebrity status.

Marvin is not known to carry any weapons and typically gets others to do his dirty work for him, but nobody is quite clear what he keeps dwon those pants - I'm not sure they have ever be detached from his body so he is probably hiding some kind of weapon!

Fat-neck syndrome means another op.

Aleksandr got wind of Sergeys crowning and subsequent assault of two lovely ladies and demanded he be stitched up so he could return. Dr Death was supposed to be studying for med school but had to take time out to squeeze in some surgery.

Aleksandr had no spine. Now he's more machine than man, er, meerkat.

Dr Death needed to cut Aleksandr a new a**e... for cable access.

Cables exits via an old launch tube from a rocket (firework), which will also allow Aleksandr to sit on spiked stand, nice. He's been stitched up again but he's got way too much stuffing and the range of motion is restricted. Dr Death will have to pull out some of his inards to reduce Aleksandrs fat-neck sydrome, but he may have to visit Sergey first.

Aleksandr's not happy with Sergey or the operation.

An old PIR unit has been spliced into Aleksandrs cyborg control system but performance isn't yet up to scratch due to the fat-neck syndrome. Aleksandr will have to go under the knife once more...

Sergey loses control!

It was all too much for Sergey - he has lost his rag and taken drastic action with Montanna (Russian style!). All family relations have broken down. It all started when he realised his favourite Wodka was missing from the freezer. Hearing noises upstairs he went to investigate only to find Hanna and Montanna singing Yankie Doodle Dandy and jumping up and down on his bed. Needless to say it was Montanna who was clutching his Wodka bottle!

This is not just a fur wound!

Hanna was petrified and hasn't moved since - any slight movement could result in the same treatment!

Sergey's distant cousins arrive on the doorstep!

Without warning, Sergey's cousins arrive from the US. Hanna and Montanna have obviously sampled some of the good life in Holywood and cosider themselves "upper" class in relation to Sergey and Alexandr. Sergey is not amused because for lunch he offered the traditional gruel and grubs and they just turned their nose up and went out for a Big Mac! Sergey can't wait to get rid of them. When asked Sergey said "I just want them to leave. I know they are family but they are really stuck up Western snobs who have never experienced a hard life in Russia. I can't hold my tongue much longer, if they don't leave then fur will fly - simples!". The problem now is all the planes are grounded due to the Volcanic ash from Iceland. Sergey is beside himself. I suggested that he should keep them occupied - perhaps with a game of table tennis which might also have the added benefit of reducing some of that american 'fat-ass'.

Sergey's Stash of crowns

....and when (if) Alexandr returns to claim the crown, Sergey has a secret stash of new crowns ready

King Sergey

Something for the Blog. As Alekandr has been missing for so long now, Sergey is now crowned as the new King of the Meerkat office. We can only hope that Alekandr will recover from his operation but I think Sergey is hoping that he doesn't. Those two never saw eye to eye!

Gazza

Evil mute meerkat with a squiffy eye

The voice recorder thing wasn't happy; every time I recorded something and played it back the output was almost inaudible. I thought perhaps the circuit wasn't man enough to drive the speaker down 1m of cable, so to test I tagged the circuit back together, but there was no improvement. Perhaps I'd knackered the piezo mic when prizing it from the case? I tried some other piezo pickups that I had. No luck.

OK, plan B: steal my daughters "spy pen" that has the same kind of recorder circuit, and hack that in instead. With a promise to buy her a new one I tested it and opened it up. I extended the speaker wires to the appropriate length to check, but no, it didn't like it either. There's no way I'm going to start farting around amplifying it (and I'm already in the dog house for pimping meerkats on a bank holiday weekend!), so out goes his voice box and Aleksandr's now a mute meerkat!

Nurse, scalpel please...

I decide to go in from the back:

My daughter really didn't like this shot:

Inside-out head; made me chuckle!

His head's like the TARDIS...

Easy! Easy! A steady hand needed for eye surgery:

Bit of a Terminator thing going on here...

Damn! Aleksandr has a wonky right eye! The drill bit must have gone in all squiffy like.

Some 18 SWG tinned copper wire wrapped around the servo and fed into the arms should help stabilise the servo and give it something to push against (as well as the stuffiing). As a bonus, Aleksandr gets posable arms.

Test fit of servo:

Oh, how I spend my time...

It's not pretty!

Ugly hack anyone? I've had the stripboard circuit in the pic below kicking around since 2001, it was a prototype of a servo controller used on some automated test jigs. As you can see, I've chopped it down a bit to fit in an old hand-held box that's got to be 15 years old itself.

This voice memo thingy has seen better days...

See? Some nasty bodgery happening here.

The original circuit used is here:

But I changed the 4k3 to 3k3 and 5k pot to a 10k pot (it's what I had) with 8k2 in parallel to still give me the desired 1 to 2ms pulse width (it actually gives 1 to 2.4ms and the servo doesn't hit its end stops so doesn't draw excessive current).

I had grabbed two screenshots of the waveforms, but for now they're trapped on my scope because my serial-USB adapter isn't playing ball. Next time.

Until then; not quite a chainsaw but Aleksandr does look concerned!

Most people have stone lions, we have Meerkats.

Gary, Sergey and Aleksandr. I forget which one's which...Aleksandr