The plan, or at least, what I had been calling a plan, pretty much had ended here: the three metal parts had been designed and cut, with great thanks to the water-jet friend.  They fit together, but really weren't a machine, yet- rough and already rusty, it was time to figure out how to make this thing go.

Under the jump is the full story. I generally don't like jumps, but I figure it would be best not to completely bump my boss off the front page of his own site.

(image: Espie eyes up the cam follower)

I had known that to get any sort of organic movement I would would need a low RPM motor. The plan is to tap into the AC that already runs up the man to power the neon. Unfortunately, the only AC low RPM motors that were available on Ebay were Gi-nourmous, far to large to fit into the 13"x18" space that the heart needs to fit into.

(image: for scale: the motor, cam, and some sort of metallic money disc)

But, then, paydirt! An ebay seller had multiple 25 RPM DC motors for sale! High torque? Booyah! Since the environment out there is totally destructive to any sort of electronics, I bought two.  In my excitement, however, I failed to notice that the shaft of the motor was both too short and to thin.. a measly 4mm.

OFF TO THE BAT CAVE! Or, in this case, another super-secret machine shop. I am extremelly lucky that I had two very dear friends who were willing to help me out. Awesome friend #1 (who wishes to remain anonamous) took my chicken-scratch dimensions for the mounting and drive and, well, made them svelte and sexy. 

(image: making the plans)

He then continued to totally kick ass and bust out some more parts, and created a mounting system/ shaft coupler to work with my shamefully tiny shaft (ahem).

(image: brilliant mounting system designed by our mystery machinist)

All the while Espie and I got the cam and cam follower ready to be in motion. The water jet makes very precise cuts, but not smooth shiny ones, which was needed for metal-on-metal action. Spending our time wisely, we sanded the bejesus out of those parts, which came out smooth-n-shiny.

Tune in tomorow for the exciting conclusion (and video!). Also, laser beams! PTCHOO!