Hey! As some may have realised Dave has already built his own J5 over at the Wrexham J5 Build on Facebook. I am in awe naturally (or as Ben said “I am standing here beside myself”), though it fills me with a lot of joy and motivation seeing his own progress but as anyone with almost any project knows or certainly any droid builders amongst us, projects are rarely completed or ever truly ‘finished’. We modify, we carry out improvements, we incorporate new technology for new functions and expansion of capabilities or longevity and so on. It is all part of the fun.

When it comes to J5 matters Dave is a veteran, he’s been at this a long time. He designs, bench tests and reverse engineers on a daily basis. In fact his experience has earnt him a place on the Input-Inc team! Now, if you are unaware of the Input-Inc team all I’ll simply say this about them, they are a crack commando unit……no wait, ok they are of sorts! Input-Inc. is dedicated to the documenting, redesigning (while staying movie-accurate) and building of the “Johnny Five” robot. The team have been active for well over a decade and over the years have amassed an incredible knowledge base of the original J5 and S.A.I.N.T’s. It’s in large this information which is so readily available thanks to their efforts and good will that we’ll be using from the ground up on Chris’ project but more on these two later. Back to Dave’s build!

Dave has attended a number of events in the past but after a long wait, a number of rebuilds and some special modifications he is raring to get J5 back out again! This coming weekend (Nov 20th and 21st) Dave and his Wrexham J5 build will be attending Wales Comic Con:Telford Takeover ’21. Just one of the tasks he’s undertaken with a little help from myself is the addition of new and improved track pads for J5’s main tracks as picture below.

This is a small insight into the make up for the tracks, which for those interested were originally made from a conveyor system! Each link is made from a long lasting very strong plastic and every link had to be drilled 8 times allowing us to attach one of two types of track pads, a 3d printed plastic pad and the other made of a durable rubber material specifically designed to reduce noise when moving but also reduce the damage to the tracks over time. Each other pad being rubber will mean he also has a bit more friction and therefore arguably more traction. As mentioned, each link was drilled 8 times, each track pad is attached by 8 bolts and we have around 50 links per track. It took the majority of two full days just to bolt on the pads! I can’t wait to do this on my own build…..with some help from Dave!

Whilst I was busy attaching the pads Dave was busy making cups of tea for himself designing one off parts such as brackets and then set about printing them, then whilst that was happening he tackled a number of other items on his list of things to do in preparation for Wales Comic Con. To know more come seek us out in the ‘Interactive Zone’. We’ll be there both days and more than happy to share tales and shenanigans with you and don’t forget to grab yourself a pic with Dave’s wonderful Wrexham J5 Build!