OK, turns out that 1/100 is big. I mean, BIG. like in huge, especially parts count. So I sort of kept track until it went past about 2,500 connectors.
I sort of feel it's beyond 4,000 or so by now, plust maybe some 6,000 straw pieces that have to be cut exactly to size - all proportions between parts depend on every strut being proportional - not paying attention to that is what killed version 0.1.
And that means sort of 10,000 possible failure points.
Maybe I am totally mistaken in my stategy, but I felt it would be simpler to redo the whole thing, one more time, the third one is..., etc.
Fact is, I have probably spent over 50 hours so far in Version 0.2, maybe 20 on the original V. 0.1
Redoing from zero was not quite from zero, since lessons learned are worth something, so v 0.3 is going strong and well after only 4 hours I'd say I am mid-way to where 0.2 arrived at its max, and addressing some issues that got completely out of hand when "fixes" on V 0.2 made the thing complex beyond reason.
I presented a part of v 0.2 during our recent ASMS event - more on that later. Got 3rd Place in its category, which is quite an encouragement.
That being said, the v. 0.2 1/100 project is literally shelved (as in stored in some shelves) until I catch up on some other stuff around the place and Life. y'all understand, and if you don't yet, you will :-), Meanwhile v. 0.3 is yet just a computer trace, which for the fun of it I cut in paper at about 1:250 scale. Still missing the last section on top, what you see if 49 inches tall.
Laser cut and assembled 2014-10-24 during The Robot Group meeting, many thanks to Wolf and the team.
Took 12 sheets of 20"x14" thick paper, about an hour of laser time.
It was quite flimsy until the magic of engineering structure took over. At this scale the whole tower would have to be less than 24 ounces heavy - amazing how the real thing is strong enough!
Thanks, Chris!