This weekend marked the first ever R2 Builders Sweden gathering!
We met up at Nixon’s place, some had to travel further than others (think 600 kilometers, one way. (that’s 375 miles for you Americans). Funny that they still managed to show up earlier than me, who only lives about 32 kilometers (or 20 miles) away..
Anyway, We met at Thomas Nixon’s house, and it was Thomas,me (Only builders present with completed droids), David, Micke B and Anton for a weekends worth of building and nerding. Thomas has graciously converted his kitchen/outer hall area to a workshop for us.
I brought a few things with me, both to show off a bit, and some things to work on. I brought my just completed amp with octagon port mod to show, and also my double wheel set that had a motor burn a while back, and to get it fixed I could use a bit of help…
After looking at what others are doing, I decided to not cut off the second octagon port knob, since Anton immediately said “I can cut that off with my lathe in five minutes next week”. That certainly beats cutting with a noisy dremel for a number of hours!
So, off to work on my old wheel plates. Since I had forgotten a few tools, naturally the ones I needed, it took a while to be able to remove the locking sprints, but once the wheel was off, and we managed to get all the treadlocked screws that held the motor in place.
The treadlock is great, but it requires high temperature to even try and get it loose. I managed to with my soldering iron, heat up the screws enough to get 5 of the siz screws holding one of the motors in place
(Old pic to illustrate how the motors are mounted)
Last screw was impossible to move, but since the motor (or at leas the gear box) was messed up anyway, I cut the head off with my dremel, and forced the screw through the hole to get rid of the motor.
Next step was to take the replacement motor and drill a cavity into the motor axel…
Basically, what I was tryingto achieve was this:
Once the hold in the axel was there, next step was to assembled the motor into the holder, screw in the grub screw (with treadlocker) and assemble the holder. The final re-assembly of the motor holder will be done at home.
I also spent some time desoldering the volume pot on my second, bigger amplifier (for the secondary speakers) for my R2, for the similar octagon port mod for the rear octagon port.
Once that was done, I built a new breakout board for the pot, and did some other small odds and ends, such as painting a few bits and pieces until I considered myself done for the day.
After a lovely dinner made by Thomas girlfriend, we all just chilled out and relaxed a bit in his home theater…
After that, it was time to go home and get some well deserved sleep.
I had to miss out on day #2 (but I was told it ended quite early), since I had things planned with the family..
All in all a great day. Build pics courtesy of Thomas Nixon and Micke Brodin.
