aluminium

New parts, feet getting done and some more stuff done..

I know ..

I’ve been lazy, not updating this here properly!

Good thing is, I’ve been building!

I’ve narrowed my search for glue down to really 3 candidates that I’m using for different tasks. Yes, the “remover” is actually used as glue. It’s a nail polish remover that consists of nearly 90% Ethyl Acetate, which is a strong solvent that melts styrene, thus welding the plastic together!

Very volatile, sets very quick, then needs 24 hours to harden, but a joy to work with!

The thin needle is standard polystyrene cement, not as fluent, not as quick setting, and with a needle applicator that allows me to squeeze some extra glue into small crevices!

Finally, the standard superglue. Used for anything where I need something setting fast, or for gluing resin parts to styrene!

Since the Ethyl Acetate chemical is not really healthy to breathe in, I decided after a day of testing to invest in my health and get myself a proper mask. In this baby, I don’t even smell the thing.

Last thing I want from my hobby is health issues due to breathing too many fumes from glue!

Anyway, so what have I actually accomplished?

Well, the legs are now *nearly* done. I need a tiny metal insert, that Sigge is kindly providing to me, hopefully this weekend, and after that I can skin them fully, and then my droid’s legs are 100% DONE!

They are partially skinned now, as you can see in this picture:

Skinned the sides, sanded them down, and now the main part of the leg is ready to be skinned. Then the tiny pieces under the shoulder needs to wait for a tiny piece of aluminium.. =)

While waiting, I’ve started work, and made quite a good way into making the center foot. I attached my resin half-moon’s which are both screwed and glued, and then I realized that I had actually purchased the full plates in resin some months ago, and these half-moons were actually planned to just be half-moons on the outer feet!

Oh well, more spare parts to sell to someone else. Starting to get a few of those!

The foot needs to sit and harden overnight, and then the top pieces sanded down to match the angles. After that, It’s “only” the bottom parts left!

The inside of the foot is complete with mounting plates for 2 double casters. They run smooth and should be quite shock absorbant. I’ve used quite a bit of styrene inside the foot, but since R2 is going to be top heavy, I don’t really think this will be a problem.

I also designed a quick and easy (and sturdy) way to be able to have the main foot detachable. My idea is to have both legs and center foot detachable for easier transport.

I’ll jot up a design tomorrow if I have time, and see if my new CNC friend can make them for me! They should be quite simple, though.

Speaking of Aluminium, these arrived today:

Long awaited, all the way from Australia comes these machined logic surrounds, which will fit nicely into my dome, that should arrive any day now.

Apart from that, I also received and soldered together what might possibly be the controller for my R2 unit. Cheap and simple, and allows for a few servos and/or signals to be controlled from a PS2 compatible controller.

Since I have an Arduino Uno, I’m also hoping that I can use the receiver part in this, and program the Arduino to actually interpret the buttons pressed, and thus allowing me more control with combining buttons pressed on the PS2 controller!

All in all, a good build day, even though it was quite short for me.

Tomorrow, I’m hoping to get some more skin on the legs or possibly finish the center foot!

nite all!

//Micke

By micke|2016-12-06T00:02:00+01:00January 9th, 2012|R2-D2|Comments Off

Skins completed, plus my fridge has been restrained…

So..

Another full day of working with the skins of my R2.

Now, all skins are cut out, apart from some details that I need a circle cutter to do.

I’ve even sanded parts of the lose pieces that I will keep, but there is a lot of sanding to do on the skins, but I think I’ll leave that until it is time to actually attach them. We’ll see!

Here’s a quick pic of where I’ve attached the outer skins, so you can get an idea of the forthcoming Astromech:

I had a little more time on my hands as well, so I took out my old citadel paints and decided to paint, weather and mount a magnet inside my restraining bolt, kindly given to me by Sigge =)

I think it came out quite well!

Now, my fridge is restrained

Not too bad for a day’s work!

//Micke

By micke|2016-12-06T00:02:05+01:00December 26th, 2011|R2-D2|Comments Off

A cheap, working solution for lights in the Holoprojectors…

After reading another builders blog, I got inspired to work on the light in my own holo projectors.

I have these, really nice hp’s from BobC:

These are CNC:ed out from aluminum, and just beautiful.

Anyway, I purchased 3 of these LED lights to use as a light source inside the HP’s:

I figured I’d find a way to attach these into the HP’s along the way. No idea how to actually do it at the time.

After opening up the LEDlights, I used a special type of plier, used to remove locking casters, such as the ones right inside the HP. Luckily I had one of these lying about since back in the day when I was making my own chain mail 😉

After opening them up, this is what I was left with.

By looking at the battery holder, it is the central point that is the plus sign, and any/all of the four outermost soldering points that are the negatives. This is where I will solder later.

Now, by looking at the size of that thing, I had an idea. the inside of the LED light is just slightly smaller than a normal bottle cap. Being Christmas, I had to use bottle caps from “Julmust”, which is a christmas brew only available in stores around Christmas. Good thing, as it is SOO tasty!

I drilled a hole through the bottle cap, and used an old screw to fasten it to the backplate of the Holo’s. Just look at how well the LED innards fit inside the bottle cap…

So, long story short: It is a simple task of soldering 2 wires, one to the middle, and one to any of the four end points of the LED board.

I then cut open the cap from the side to allow for the cables, and filled half the cap with hot glue. This will also serve as insulation for the center screw.

Sorry, no pics during soldering. Don’t want to burn myself…

Once this was done, I like another builder, too had the issue with the LED lights showing when lighting something, so I needed a diffuser. I also noticed that the very RED bottle cap could partly be seen on the very edges of the lens inside the HP.

My solution for this was simple. I used a glossy, slightly thicker part that I have for my color laser printer. I superglued a disc of paper on top of the LED, and also, for good measure put a dab of glue and put the original lens from the LEDlight on top of the whole thing.

Last step is to turn the whole thing on! Just look at how nice it turns out, and the total cost for this was just the cheap LED flashlights, some cable, and having to empty three bottles of julmust! *hic*

Cheers!

//Micke

By micke|2016-12-06T00:02:06+01:00December 25th, 2011|R2-D2|Comments Off