Mechanisation

As you may know, a Dalek isn’t a real one unless it moves. And most crucially, a Movie Dalek is not a remote controlled thing, its got an person on it making it move, talk, fire etc. So, the most important thing to do is get something to make it move. Casters is not an option since the dalek is definitely going to be heavy. Moving it on an incline is going to be a nightmare with casters alone and someone inside moving around ‘flintstone style’

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So, yep - its going to be an electric wheelchair

Ok, so I managed to find a beaten down wheelchair (thanks Keith!), but it's battery is flat and unusable. Not only that, but Freek having checked out the control unit has pointed out that may also be dead – a great start 🙂 Anyway, not to be deterred, the illustrious Freek continued on his march of converting the four wheel to a three. This is because the Dalek needs to be able to rotate literally ‘on the spot’. First, here’s that wheelchair.

The chair needs two wheels converted to one on the front. The following photos are all from Freek as he did this. Note that the bracket would have to be converted to steel later.

A Dalek turns 360 in a very tight circle

Can't have two wheels on the front.

Front wheels only

From the other angle, and the steering bar removed

Remove the front wheels

Without the front wheels with steering mount

Construction of the new bracket, wheel position and reconnection

There’s still a lot to do here, but this is a massive achievement. Got to somehow make the darn thing move or it will be a three wheeled ‘waste of space’. Following a lot of head scratching, seems the rest of the wheelchair (a) would not work and (b) would not fit the base, so the whole wheelchair mechanism was taken to pieces, the base reshaped and the wheelchair chassis created from scratch to fit the base. The result is below.

Then, add the base and skirt to the wheelchair section. The wheelchair chassis needed extra support struts on the front to take the weight of the base and skirt. The skirt took a tiny little reshape so that there was clearance for the back wheels, and the front wheel circle took a little reshape so that the front wheel would turn.

Ok, add the seat. This took some doing especially working out the height of the seat :)

During the cleanup of the skirt, sited the electrics for easy access. Batteries situated in a good position for access. Key voice battery installed under the seat, again for clear connection to the voice unit. Mechanisation completed!

Darik-the-Dalek