frame

Center vent speaker holder

For a while I had this idea of making the bluetooth speakers I’ve got behind my center vents more accessible.

I came up with this idea that I would make a magnet-locked box that contained the center vents and the speakers that I could just pull out when I wanted to turn the speakers on or off.

A few nights ago I couldn’t sleep, and got up in the middle of the night and drew some makeshift blueprints. I needed a box with curved front, where I’d glue a 1mm piece of styrene that holds the center vents, and another outer skin piece, that would overlap on the area where I pull the box out.

I started with building the actual box that will contain the center vents and speakers.

This fits the speakers quite well, and at the moment I’ve got some styrene holding the speakers in place, but that will be replaced by pieces of velcro that will keep the speakers in place.

Plenty of room for the speakers and power cable through USB and the connection between the speakers.

It even looks good from the front with the center vents in place. The center vents are only placed there for now as I’m waiting for BobC’s aluminum center vents. Once they have arrived in a few weeks, they will be screwed in place from the sides with countersunk screws.

Only thing this needs at the moment is the front skin piece, the blue piece. It is cut out but I will not cut out the center vent holes until I get the actual vents that will be in place, so for now, it will not hide the small gaps on the sides when this has been slid into place.

So, after finishing the box, I decided to tear open the skin and remove the center vents and the supports. Scary stuff!

After cleaning out the center vent area, I glued some support pieces in place that will guide the box so it will sit still in place.

Sliding in the box… looking good…

… and finally in place!

Apart from this, which I’m quite happy with, I’ve also managed to sand and paint the dome panels one more time… They are now primed and ready for proper painting!

Woohoo!

By |2016-12-06T00:01:31+01:00June 13th, 2012|R2-D2|Comments Off on Center vent speaker holder
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R2 is now wearing a skirt and has a detachable center foot mount!

Felt a little better today. The cold is definitely on its way back, and I’ve taken things easy again.

However, there are a few things that I’ve done on the droid after all.

First off, I drilled and tapped the center ankle and also the skirt and frame bottom, to allow for the center foot to be mounted on and off with 6mm wing nuts, just like the center legs.

So, now my leg mounts are complete! I also drilled and fastened the center foot into the ankle with 6mm bolts, so everything is secure!

Next thing was to sand the edges of the skirt, to get ready for completing it. I also wanted to add inner walls to the skirt, even though it is on the underside of R2, and very few people will ever see anything there, but I like to keep things looking neat, so I glued in 1mm styrene to cover the structure of the skirt.

Once that was done, I sat in my chair for a while chamfering. *sigh* Not my favorite thing to do, but necessary. And messy.

(… and I had cleaned up twice before I took that picture…)

Finally, the skirt, side angles and cones was glued onto the bottom ring, and is left over night to dry off. Only thing remaining now is the “ribs”, something that will require a lot of chamfering… again.

By |2016-12-06T00:01:48+01:00February 22nd, 2012|R2-D2|Comments Off on R2 is now wearing a skirt and has a detachable center foot mount!
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More skin work and coin return!

Hello =)

I’m glad that YOU decided to read my blog again today =)

So, today has been one of those days where I made good progress, but mostly on small things that are not too visible.

I started off with gluing on the remaining pieces of the front outer skin, the hatches that will not open, the utility arms surrounds etc, and having these glued on really helps to bring out the texture in the front of the droid.

I also got around to glue the rear outer skins as well, including the small tidbits.

I looked over the hatch surrounds, the thin styrene pieces that is basically the outline of the hatches (even the ones that will not open) and I realized that I will need to touch up on most of them, and possibly redo one or two, so they are not added.

However, I had this amazing idea yesterday to try and make a coin slot using the aluminium tape to cover it with. The tape is not wide enough to cover the entire coin slot, but how much of a seam would be visible?

I figured that in worst case, I’ll get the fronts made for me 😉

Didn’t come off too bad, I think, and the seam is not visible if you are half a meter from the droid!

What do you think?

Of course, the back is not nearly as pretty as the front..

I used quite a few scrap pieces just to fasten everything in place, more than needed, but I didn’t want to wait for everything to set before trying it on, so I slabbed on a few extra styrene pieces 😉

Front of my droid, with small hatch covers glued on, ad the nice coin return.

Works pretty ok, doesn’t it?

I didn’t find a blueprint for it (only searched for about 3 minutes) so I estimated the angle. After all it was only a test.

I’ll get back to the construction store and see if they have slightly wider aluminium tape. I could work wonders with this!

I might as well, as on a personal note I don’t know how things will be in the near future.

My fiancée walked in on me giving a sponge bath to someone else today…

By |2016-12-06T00:01:53+01:00February 20th, 2012|R2-D2|Comments Off on More skin work and coin return!
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