construction

More Data Panel..

Will this never end?

MORE on this data panel nonsense?
Yes! Indeed!

First the easy bit: I removed the 3d printed coupling once again, and superglued it in place, instead of the hot glue that was not doing its job.. but that was not the big thing!

Basically, I had done the bulk of the panel, but lacked the surrounds for it. I started by looking at the surrounds I already had on the A&A Kit I purchased some years ago and realized that’s not going to work.

So, using that as a template, I started cutting and filing and doing my thing in some 1mm styrene to come up with something like … this:

I painted that with Satin White, and drybrushed it with some old, trusty “Mithril Silver” and glued it in place..

filthied it down, just like I did the original panel.. (Using “Chaos Black” and “Flesh Wash”. Really putting these two old Citadel colours to work here)

.. before I went over it with cotton pads and a solvent to clean it up and also burn the weathering into the lacquer paint.

It really looks the part (pun intended) now, and it feels more solid.

I tested it in place, and it is ready to be fitted in place, but before I go down that route, there were a couple of other things needs to be done first.

First off, since I want this hatch to be openable, and I didn’t prepare anything for it, I realized I needed to route a hole in my top ring around the utility arm area:

I fastened an M4 screw in place and it sticks up just enough in my routered path that it works!

While doing this, I also removed the old magnet holding the door shut… and shimmied off some material that was catching when the door was closing… and this is when R2 realized that “hey, it’s been too long since a blood sacrifice was made”..

Once the bloodlust of R2 (Bet you didn’t know he had one. All builders can agree with me that he has one) was settled, I could finish off the short time of work for the evening, which was to switch two cables on the dome motor, to make R2 turn his head in the direction I want him to!

Next up is attaching a servo to the frame, and start working on getting this hatch to close… not sure how that’s going to go, to be honest….

When working in cramped areas like this I really wish I had a set of old dentist tools and drills.. it could make live SO much easier 😉

By micke|2016-12-06T00:00:21+01:00April 12th, 2015|R2-D2|Comments Off

Data Panel!

So, A long long time ago in a galaxy far, far away.. I had temporarily mounted one of the inside panels of R2 with duct tape.

The circuitboard was assembled, held in place behind the panel by duct tape, the panel was unpainted, looked flat, and .. you guess it .. held in place by duct tape.

Not to mention the arduino running the program for the blinky lights…

Anyway: I figured that if I wanted this panel to be in my droid, I had to do something proper with it. I have not had it inside my R2 for a long time, and I had an idea what to do with it:

From this:

To something like this:

I have 4 arduinos in the body of my R2-D2, and easy access to them is something that I have long sought after…

First step was to start cutting up the panel..

A while ago, I ordered a bunch of USB cables for panel mounting. I just needed to cut away some portruding things on the insides, and then I simply taped four of them together.

Test fit behind the panel..

It fits perfect!

However, I wanted to have something more, not just a long gaping hole with 4 USB’s, so I made a sort of bezel from 1mm styrene.

A test fit, to see if it works, and how it looks..

Just testing to see that the USB plug reaches in deep enough to sit properly. It does.

Next step was to drill up the holes where the connector should be properly, take the panel and bezel outside and paint the panel. Satin White, of course. The bezel, I decided to paint in R2 Blue. I needed to try something out.

I also designed and 3d printed a few distances for the circuitboard to go around the round LED’s at the bottom and to the right. Everything was hot glued in place and works like a charm.

For the LED’s up right, I cut up a piece of 1mm acrylics, drilled and riveted in place. The edges cracked when I did the riveting, but as I’m planning on weathering the panel, it really makes no difference.

Time to weather the panel! I used the same method I used for the rest of my droid, but made this one to be a little more cleaner, as it is on the inside of the droid. I filthied it down with the remains of my old Citadel Paints: Chaos Black and Flesh Wash. Once really soiled, I used cotton pads and a solvent to clean off just enough to make it look clean..ish.

I also took some sanding paper and dulled down the clear acrylic, and banged on the acrylic with the handle of a screwdriver until it cracked a little more. It looks just the part.

Something is still missing. The connector. It is just a slight engraving and some holes on this panel. I decided it needed something else. The research I’ve made suggests that it is a multi cable connector, and I drew one in Rhino3D and printed on my Makergear M2.

Once done, I gave it a quick acetone vapor bath…

… and finally hot glued it to the panel.

MUCH better!

I still need to do a bit of work on the body of the droid to mount this in place, but I was so happy that I had to do a quick pic with the panel in place:

Finally, a short youtube clip to show off what it looks like in action!

The inside of the panel is the next step with this part. I need to add ridges to mount the panel against, and also weather the inside of the hatch. That, however is work for another day! 😀

By micke|2016-12-06T00:00:22+01:00April 5th, 2015|R2-D2|Comments Off

Fixing a hobbled droid, part II

So, once the shafts were drilled, it was time to play the waiting game.

I wanted the wheel hubs to sit firmly and not spin, but also retain the option of some day remove them, in need. Not saying it has to be easy, just … well .. possible! =)

In order to make sure the grub screws stayed inside the grooves in the motor axles, I ordered a bottle of this:

Loctite Thread Locker! High Strength! High temperature! Now they should be really sticking in there!

But wait…. if I can’t get the motor hubs off .. what happens if the screws holding the motors (that are right underneath the big hubs) comes loose, I can’t fasten them… Better loctite them down as well! (medium strength thread locker this time around).

Hubs in place, sticking really hard. I almost completely destroyed a hex screw trying to (by force alone) unscrew a grub screw once set with the high strength thread locker. Not gonna happen.

Last step for the feet: screw the motor plates together, and also add a small holder for the bottom of the white insert.

OH, and before you ask: “Isn’t that James Short’s design on the motor holders?” Let me clear up this once and for all. It is not. Not one bit. In fact. James will see this for the very first time after these are posted, and invent a time machine, go back in time, and make a set that looks 99% identical, make a blueprint off them, and send them to my mailbox in the past, so it looks like he might have emailed me the plans for his, and then, based on those, I’ve made these, with just a tiny, minute difference (that he even will be so cleverly evil to put into his blog post about his motor holders that he should have done (again, posted in he past through time machine so it looks like it predates mine)).

I’ve also replaced the center wheel to the same type of wheel I had previously, as it lifted up the center foot better from the ground, and should work great with these wheels.

Step three of this, is to drill upp the holes in the styrene ankles. I suspect (well .. quite strongly, in fact, since I just drilled them freehand without any pillar drill or anything. Basically eyeballed it) that the holes through the ankles of my droid is not perfectly perpendicular to the surface they are in.

This might be why my droid is veering off to the left all the time when driving!

My solution for this is simple. The bolt going through the ankle is 8mm, I’ve got a 10mm metal tube inside the hole through the ankle to protect the styrene. I just need to firmly stick the ankle to something straight, drill a new, bigger hole in its place, make sure the plastic doesn’t try to veer off in any direction (Might even mix up a batch of styrene putty and pack tight into the ankle hole and let dry first, to make sure this doesn’t happen easily.), then insert a new metal insert into this bigger hole. That is another job for another day. I can do the prep job, but drilling the holes and making new inserts on a lathe is something my friend Anton will have to help me with.

By micke|2016-12-06T00:00:29+01:00January 14th, 2014|R2-D2|Comments Off

construction

More Data Panel..

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Data Panel!

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Fixing a hobbled droid, part II

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