It didn't take long for me to determine that I wanted a different top deck for the Nomad. There were two goals I had for a replacement or modified deck. I wanted something that would allow easy access to the Nomad electronics, and I wanted something that would allow different "attachments" to be put in place quickly and with a minimum of fuss and muss.
I am fortunate in that my employer has a "contract manufacturing" operation, and they have a laser. At rate times, they have small amounts of time where we can sneak"government" jobs in. They also happened to have some aluminum"drop" available (i.e. free material).
The result is shown below. There is an outer ring to take care of the structural requirements, and hole the Nomad together. The opening in the ring is 8-1/2 inches (21 cm for the rest of the world). Even I can fit my monster meat hooks inside to get at the electronics. The center plate is secured to the outer ring with 6 screws. I uses M4 because that's the size PEM we had in stock, and the price was right. The plate has six corresponding "key hole" slots so that it kind of "twist locks" in place. I also included a set of 6 holes for wires to pass through, similar to the original top deck.
I can see having a number of plates to insert, each with a different set of sensors or other attachments. My current plans include one plate with an IP camera, on one plate with an SG6-UT Arm. The plate with the Arm should be good for chasing the cat.
| Plain Deck In Place: | Show Without Center Plate: |
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| Plain Deck Shown "Ajar": | Show With Arm Installed: |
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