aluminium

Test driving in the street

This may well be one of the biggest updates….

So, I did quite a few things and decided to take R2 on a quick test drive into the street….

Well… first things first… Let me tell you about the stuff I had to do to get him there….

R2 has been on a massive overhaul lately, and I’ve started doing things from painting to change the wheels around, and rethinking the speakers and coming up with a good solution for that, and now also changing the position of the battery, which in turn led me to finally redo the entire electronics board, and actually add a fuse box into my little friend!

This is the new electronics board, which in this version (it has changed slightly) has the Dan Stuettgen Power Distribution board bottom left, going to the fusebox, up right, sending power up to the dome and into the RC receiver and finally the Sabretooth and Syren 10 used for drive and dome control.

The entire electronics board is suspended with velcro, so it actually has a really good vibration dampener, something that I really like!

The battery has been moved from the front of my droid body to the back of the droid body. Low point of gravity and all.

This is how much space I have between the board and the battery..

The battery is secured with Velcro underneath, and also a strip of velcro making sure it doesn’t vibrate out of place, tying it to the frame in the back. I like Velcro.

From the top, the droid doesn’t look as cluttered anymore..

Now, of course there were some snags with this. First off I realized that the slip ring connector board was too close to my slip ring holder, so I had to move it around a bit. Actually you can see the new position in the pic above, compared with the first picture of the board.

Second.. well … we’ll get to that later! =) All in good time!

Paint job has continued. Even though I have ordered a metal set, I made a quick paint job on my resin set of power couplers. I know. I forgot the ring in the front, and no, it’s not very nicely painted. Come on, people. Give me a break. This is a rush job to impress the family on Midsummer! I will get proper paints and proper metal pieces as well, but I wanted them to at least have sort of the correct paint job! =)

I have quite painfully realized that my hands are not as steady as they used to be last time I brought out them citadel paints. 15 years ago when I was painting eyes on war hammer figures about an inch tall…

I have also realized that there are many auto paint shops that can not only break the color to the exact nuance I want, but also put it in an aerosol can for me!

Lately, I’ve been out looking at cars to find a color that I like that may or may not be my R2 blue.

Since the silver can was out anyway, I painted my resin Center Vents. They are pretty beat up, and I can’t wait to get a nice, clean aluminum set from BobC. Again. Midsummer. Temporary. Impress family…

Anyway, this is the speaker/center vent holder with the blue front. Works quite well. It would work a lot better with a pair of metal center vents screwed into the holder!

By the way… the speakers are now held in place with .. you guessed it …. Velcro!

I like the package feeling I get from the unit with the vents and the speakers. Small, self contained… works …

Another great way of fastening things on my droid is magnets. I picked up a few bags of rather small magnets and made a holder for my LDP, and superglued two magnets to the back of it. It sits really sturdy in place and is going nowhere!

Locking mechanism above…. and LDP in place below:

The utility arms are not mounted properly either. I still lack the tubes and screws needed so for now, they are only sitting inside the arm holders with … Well … it starts with a “V” …

I really like the dark color of them utility arms and LDP, though. It is the SAME color as the rest of the blue stuff… but I think I didn’t rattle the can enough, since the stuff I sprayed first came out much darker than the stuff towards the end of the can…

One thing that is NOT fastened with Velcro, however are the copper hose braids. I have still no foot stripes so I have not drilled out the holes in the feet yet that these should connect to, but decided to fix them up anyway.

The hose braids was ordered by Sigge and shipped to me. Thank you Captain Sigge!

I found a good clear rubber hose that I cut to length and placed inside the copper braids. My next move was to use the old “plug and screw” technique in order to lock the braids inside the hose.

Since they will be screwed into place, I only secured ONE end, the other end will be inserted into the battery box and gently pulled out until it is quite secure.

Finally, it was time to assemble my droid again. He has not been fully assembled since winter, and it was about time!

When putting on his center leg, the box I had him propped up against slid away from under him, and he almost face planted. As it happens, the edge of the box really smashed up one of the center vents even more. so I had to do a quick fix with some superglue and silver paint to cover up the worst.

Again, getting proper metal ones, so this is ok for the moment… really.

Once he was on three wheels, it was time to test drive him around a bit.

Or so I thought.

Turns it was time to troubleshoot electronics a bit.

The Sabretooth started blinking as if the battery was depleted, but that’s a pretty big battery and I think I had it more than half full. I charged for 40 minutes and tried again. Same error.

Turns out that the Power Distribution Board is not made for sending through the power to the motor controller, so I had to put that in parallel from the battery. A snip here, a cable there, and problem was fixed.

Another thing I realized was that I need to move his front wheel slightly more to the front, and I need to work on securing the center ankle, as it was not as stable as I’d hoped. I may need to come up with another solution for the foot.

Anyway, all assembled, still needing pocket and side vents, here is my droid in its current state:

Still, lots to do, but at least I know he works, and apart from painting and weathering and fixing an ankle and some vents and stuff, he is starting to be quite… assembled! =)

By |2016-12-06T00:01:29+01:00June 19th, 2012|R2-D2|Comments Off on Test driving in the street
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Domeworks

After my really lovely time in Gothenburg, I realized that next time I had a chance to take my droid out, I had to be there.

This time, without any duct tape on the dome!

No time to waste, got to get to work!

First on the agenda, was to mount the top part of the inner dome properly into the outer dome. The inner dome has been sanded as much as possible, and once it was a proper fit, I just put in place. It is held in place by milliput and superglue, and seems like it is holding up nice. Once the rest of the inner dome is mounted, I will add some extra safekeeping inside, just to be sure. For now, it looks pretty ok, I must say!

I really like how it looks weathered as is…

For the inner dome I fixed the panel I had in place for the “mystery panel”. Essentially, this is a piece of plexiglass that I had cut to size and heated up with my blowtorch, bent slightly around the inner dome to match the curve somewhat, and finally set in place with milliput. The outside of the plexiglass has been sanded, in order to match the surface of the inner dome, and on the inside, I’ve glued 2 layers of a mylar film that I got from Sigge!

(Great guy, that Sigge. I will have to devote an entire post with the items he’s gotten for me so far… and I will!)

In this light, it is easy to see, but with the frame around, and a decent box behind it to close off the light, It will look quite the same as the reset of the dome!

This is the inside, with the mylar film glued to the piece of plexiglass. They grey stuff is the hardened milliput, that should be hard enough to withstand even poking fingers from kids!

The rear PSI and rear Holo Projector also needed cutting out. The rear PSI hole was really making me slightly nervous, as this hole is in a place where it will be exposed!

However, I started with the rear holo projector, which really doesn’t have to look nice at all, since it is all covered by the outer dome anyway.

I drilled out the circumference with increasingly larger drills, to the point where the piece in the middle almost fell out by itself. Looking back, I would have brought out my dremer earlier, as the final hole ended up slightly larger than I had wanted to, but no worries, there are still plenty of aluminum to fasten the holo projector, and I preferred the hole to be slightly larger so I could move the rear holo projector around a bit, to not get into the way of the fit of the outer dome!

Once the center piece was gone, it was time to file down the rough edges… File and dremel were my tools here!

Hole ready and started to drill holes for the mounting of the holo projector.

Then time for the dreaded last hole. Having drilled 4 other holes in the dome, I used what I’ve learned from the previous attempts for this last hole.. the important one, as I want the inner dome to shine through here.

I drilled around the area… took extra precaution to not go over the line…

Dremel time! Like the front holo projector, I cut up slices, bent these away with a pair of pliers, and started sanding.

After filing and main sanding was done, it was time to use the “bottle technique” .. wrapping a bottle in sanding paper, and twist back and forth… round and round .. until you have a perfectly circular hole.

My hole for the rear PSI is slightly smaller than the actual PSI, but when looking at it, it doesn’t show, and I can’t really tell. It’s only a fraction larger anyway, and it’s better than sanding too much!

Final result, with PSI test mounted:

Since then, the PSI has been mounted properly, (for test purposes), and the last part is to sand down the area around the rear PSI to match the surface of the outer dome, and then paint, sand, paint, sand, paint, sand and paint! =)

 

By |2016-12-06T00:01:33+01:00April 9th, 2012|R2-D2|Comments Off on Domeworks
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More Coin Returns and Cutting Technology

Not a lot done in the past few days. Had busy days and also needed to spend time at home.

Anyway, After doing my first coin return, I rather quickly finished off the other two.

First off, I used the droid and old styrene bits as guide to get the proper bend into the styrene bits before cutting.

I then marked off the area to be cut off with tape, and then simply used the cutting wheel (speed click) on my dremel and cut the aluminum open.

This is the raw cut, nothing done.

As you can see, there is a lot to file and sand away!

5-6 minutes of sanding later, this looks a lot better!

Not too shabby, eh?

Even looks good from the back!

This is just after filing the aluminum to the edges, and before sanding. After sanding these are real smooth and looks pretty good!

Since I had the inner pieces already done, It was a simple matter of superglueing them in place, and add the sides (which I cut slightly large), then sealed it all up with Milliput.

Seems Tamaiya Putty is rather useless on aluminum, so I had to remove it from the first coin return and go over all joining edges with milliput. That stuff gets rock hard!

Coin returns waiting to harden…

And here’s the final trilogy, ready to be inserted!

For the moment, these are taped to the droid body, as I don’t want to fasten them permanently since I still need to paint the droid.

As a last thing, I took the rear  Power Coupling, and cut away the bottom of it, since it is too big to fit inside my styrene skins.

I learned the hard way that cutting resin is something that really should be done outside. The resin that comes off is a fine grain dust and it sticks everywhere. Do it inside and you end up covered in white powder with none of the fun!

Cutting with my trusty dremel makes these fit nice and snug!

That’s all, folks!

//Micke

By |2016-12-06T00:01:34+01:00March 29th, 2012|R2-D2|Comments Off on More Coin Returns and Cutting Technology
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