Out with the Old and, oh who even cares anymore...(Tobias)

[Noah Corek]

[member="Tobias Wrynn"]

Fondor
Prex Tower
Omega Pyre R&D Labs

Noah sighed as he continued to pick and tear at the exoskeleton in front of him. The OCE-1 was technically outdated due to the Lionheart Combat Frame developed by Fireman Industries but the Lionheart was too expensive to mass produce and for missions where stealth was key the Lionheart didn't provide that. So Noah had brought up the idea of a simple exoskeleton that could increase the users strength and agility. Of course the Alliance brass had said that a R&D project of that nature would take months and billions of credits.

Well they had said that up until Noah had pulled up a dossier reporting that not only was the idea possible but that the Omega Pyre had a few working prototypes stored away from when they tried to do the exact same thing for the Protectorate. Upon seeing this they were convinced and after being told only about ten million credits and a few Alliance provided techs were needed to sort out the few bugs that the Pyre had found with the exoskeletons and the reason why they hadn't been deployed before the reduction of the Pyre.

 

[Tobias Wrynn]

Wrynn worked the wires through the frame delicately and tested their charge with a quick jolt. The sparks that kicked up fanned out and rained across the austere floor, where they grew cold and died several seconds after. He got the call from higher up the Alliance chain that they were testing a prototype and needed more hands for the process and with word of his computing skills and knack for technology, his name made it to somewhere near the top of their list. Best part of all of this to Tobias was the paycheck that would follow. His relations with the Galactic Alliance were growing more lucrative by the day and while he was hardly a dutiful citizen, the people were growing on him.

Not that he'd ever admit it.

"Looks like the hardware is operational," he commented offhand. "The adjustments must be small calibrations in output, or at the motor level." At least with this one, he thought. He closed the outer shell and sealed it, then affixed the forearm portion to his left arm. He flexed each finger in turn to test the response. "And the sensitivity seems fine..."

Wrynn swung his arm wide just to gauge the range of motion of the apparatus. The machinery whined loudly and clicked several times before it heeded him, painstakingly slow. "Ah, I see," he muttered, "the servomotor. I thought so." He twisted his wrist and the exoskeleton unit responded at a snail's pace. Once it faced him, Wrynn flipped the unit's casing open and exposed the wiring. With a few movements of his multitool, he parted the ground wire and its accompaniment from his path and found the servomotor. "Faulty unit, maybe...?"

His face scrunched up as the optics in his eyes scanned the motor and got a read on it's input and output. The readings came back negative for problems, which meant that the motor may have been glitched to begin with. "Doesn't seem like they're getting overloaded," he noted.

"Hey," he called out to the Colonel who he had been tasked to for research and development. "This one's got a busted motor. We should troubleshoot the lot of them to be sure it's not a common problem, and if it is, we might want to source a new supply."

[member="Noah Corek"]

 

[Noah Corek]

[member="Tobias Wrynn"]

When Noah heard the mentioning of a faulty unit his face instantly scrunched up in denial. "That's impossible I order a new batch of servomotors that were delivered yesterday from Soro-Subb. From what I was told they should be able to withstand anything the power source for the suit puts into it." Noah informed Tobias as he walked over and began examining the burnt out servomotor. It took a few minutes but Noah finally found the problem. "It's not the servomotor." Noah informed as he pulled out a bundle of wires that previously been connected to the servomotors. "These wires fed TOO much power into the servomotor and overloaded it. Try finding some that will better regulate the power." Noah informed him as he went to check the other suits for the same problem.

OOC: Sorry for the short post it's late and I'm trying to bust out some posts I owe and a other thing as well.

 

[Tobias Wrynn]

"Doesn't look like an ordinary overload," he muttered to himself as he plucked a wire between two fingers and examined it. "The converters, maybe?" he pulled the wire out and a subdued snapping sound came from the attachment. "Here, let me check." The point at which the wires were fed into the servomotor was spearheaded by a small unit that helped to regulate the flow of energy. "Thought so. It's a minor thing, but the convertor isn't set right."

He tinkered at the unit with his multitool for a moment, then it let out a loud pop. "That's what made the wires overload. These aren't anything special, but they're common throughout all the pieces. They were most likely all calibrated the same."

Wrynn spliced the wire open and took a look at the innards. "Well, this is ugly," he grunted. "Looks like a tungsten grade coil, which conducts well, but it doesn't handle high output. Got any carbon fiber on hand? It holds well even at immense temperatures, and will resist an overload if exposed to something like an electromagnetic pulse." He poked around the servomotor for a bit and took stock of the make- it was intended for EMP hardening already, so replacing the older wires with something more conducive to that made sense anyway.

"Check for any residual build up in the anterior servomotor," he added, "if the wires burned off at all, they would have melted inside. The heat from a steady current could ignite that resin and cause real problems down the road."

[member="Noah Corek"]

 

[Noah Corek]

[member="Tobias Wrynn"]

Noah took a sip from a cup of stimcaf that he was using to keep himself going, being awake for the past thirty hours and trying to finally solve the problems the ACE-1's had especially it's constant frying of its internal wires. Once Tobias told him of the pros of using carbon fiber instead of tungsten grade coils Noah nodded and began looking for the wire he mentioned.

Sifting through a few bins of materials that they had requested in case they need it Noah found his items, a spool of carbon fiber wire that had enough on the spool to wire all the prototypes. Picking it up he hauled it over to Tobias and set it down. "This should be enough wire to wire up all the prototypes here. I'll check on the anterior servomotor. Give me a sec."

Grabbing a multitool Noah popped of the panel that hid the anterior servomotor and began to route through the wires to see for any problems. "Well good news is that the internal power dissipaters I installed to help with EMP hardening also dissipated the power and didn't overheat the resin or servomotor."

 

[Tobias Wrynn]

Wrynn accepted the new wires and furiously began to unravel the intermingled components and detach them from the units. It took several minutes to fully gut them, but the merc knew what he was doing and handled the business in short order. Threading the new wiring would be a different sort of task, however. It took much less time to remove old wire than it did to allocate new ones, and he had to do dry tests of the carbon fiber to ensure that nothing was out of order. The wire looked austere, which lent to the belief that it might not have been fully tested or troubleshot.

Once the energy current was applied, though, it became quickly apparently that the fibers were not only structurally sound, but the wire was more than capable of running a unit. Wrynn nodded his approval as he began to apply the carbon fiber wire to the first unit, and after several minutes he flipped the switch over. The whir of a servomotor as it came to life was the first of many signs that they were on the road to success. After he closed the external frame, the soldier slipped the frame over his arm and tried the initial motion test once more.

This time, the frame moved in fluid time with his command. It was like a completely different experience from the first failed attempt, because instead of fighting him and groaning with noncompliance, the unit was little more than a part of his arm. This was how they were supposed to operate. "Alright, good," Wrynn acknowledged aloud, "the first unit seems to be operating without an issue. I'll start threading the rest of them, now.

Anything else I should be looking for?"

[member="Noah Corek"]