construction

BB-8 Progress

Last time I left you hanging right after I’ve sanded and added Tamaiya Putty to my dome.

After I got back from a bit of well deserved vacation, it was time to (in very little time) try and get this as finished as I could in just a day to exhibit on the upcoming Science Fiction convention in Uppsala here in Sweden.

While being away on vacation, I got a nice package from my friend Michael Erwin in the US, who sent me a custom made lens for the holo projector for BB-8.

This.. looks MUCH better!

A little bit of sanding and just a touch of glue to keep it in place for now, and this part is done! I still need to find a good dark grey paint and change the main colour, but the part itself is done!

Next up was the dome. I knew I still had a few small blemishes here and there, and the joint between the dome thirds is not 100%, but I wanted to show something BB-8-ish at the convention, so off to the back yard and start painting!

A bit of filler primer, and it looks a lot smoother all of a sudden.

Normally this is where I would wait for this to cure properly and then sand it down to basically nothing, but no time to waste!

As soon as the surface was dry, It was time to hit it with my Satin White!

Not having enough time to wait for the paint to cure properly, next up was clear coating. Naturally I ended up with a little too much and it got a little runny in one spot. Fortunately, I managed to fix this pretty well, but even so, I am still going to sand this dome after a bit of putty on a few places, and then repaint it.

Next up was the Radar Eye.

It does have a bit of texture from the print still, and I could fix this with a bit of filler primer, but to be honest, I like the extra texture. It gives a bit of depth to the overall look.

Even though I printed the Radar Eye insert at 0.05 mm layer height, and no sanding was done, as it looked just perfect in black ABS, I did still cover it with a thin coat of black paint, and subsequent clear coat.

It just looks better and better. Can’t wait to put this all together!

Waiting for the pieces to dry, it was time to focus on other tasks. Making a lens for the PSI is one of those things.

The PSI lens should be small and round and sort of see thru, but milky white. A bit of clear acrylic will have to do!

Away with the covering plastic and start cutting out the circle.

Basically I cut a basic circle with my cutters. This was neither round nor pretty, but some thick sand paper and some patience solved this nicely.

Once sanded, I brought out some 600 grit sand paper and sanded the fronts and backs of the lens as well to give it a nice, milky, see through look.

Yes, it was really a rough sort of roundish piece that has been sanded by hand to this shape. Honestly!

Time to do the Radar Eye lens!

Having ordered a couple clear acrylic 70 mm hemispheres (to allow for failure), I set up a blade from a break blade knife on a small pad of paper and clamped it all down real good. I then pushed the hemisphere down and against the blade white rotating it as I went along.

After the first attempt I found the proper height from the pad, and did it all over again, a bit more careful this time as well.

Once I had cut through, I sanded off any rough edges through sanding on a flat sandpaper that was on my desk.

Next up: I had a couple of red LED’s lying at home, and I carefully pushed them into the small portion of the Radar Eye insert, and put shrink hose on the legs and routed the legs through the Radar Eye housing.

A small 3 volt battery hooked up (actually, taped) to the LED and it gives us … this!

It really gives a 2001 vibe, doesn’t it ?

I’m sorry Dave. I can’t do that…

Time to put it all together…

PSI insert was treated with a bit of silver rub and buff (after looking at pictures since, I realize this was a mistake, but I will fix that when things calm down a bit..

The Radar Eye was pushed in to the opening, same with the holo projector.

I actually glued the housing of a LED flash light on the back, so all I need to do in order to get it to lit up, is solder a few cables and attach a battery!

No time to fix the dome ring or the dome skirt for now. They area bit crooked, but I will print them over again at a later point.

Anyway, this is the result. Starting to really look as it should!

By micke|2016-12-06T00:00:06+01:00September 13th, 2015|BB-8|Comments Off

Ankle Work

Since the dawn of time… well.. since R2 was finished originally, that is, he’s had a pair of heavy resin bulks under the Ankle Cylinders.

The Ankle Cylinders was scratch built 3 years ago, and was basically a piece of PVC pipe with thin strips of styrene wrapped around it, with custom made end caps.

See this post for the original build: Scratch building ankle cylinders! They have done the trick up until now, but I wanted to have a set that looked a bit better.

The main reason for revisiting this, is that the original pieces have only been taped to the ankle with double stick tape that has (mostly) done the job, but they have had a tendency to fall off.

I don’t want to glue things in place here, as if I need to do any work on the cables inside, I need to be able to remove these to get to an access hole that is hiding behind them.

I had also lost a few of the ankle wedges (see Building an ankle wedge) that is supposed to sit on top of the cylinders. They were also just taped to the ankle…

The total assembly looked like this:

(Mounting the Ankle… stuff)

But now it was time to fix everything in this area. I had not been 100% happy with the aluminium tape wrapped around the pipe, even if it has done the job.

So, armed with my trusty CAD program, the avid reader know that I have been printing Ankle Cylinders in the past.

This is the parts that I drew and printed:

These were printed apart to get the grooves in the cylinder as sharp as possible.

The new ankle cylinders holders. 3D printed, hollow and extremely light. I have glued 12mm magnets inside them for holding them to the ankle later on.

Here are the new wedges. They are a lot sturdier and better than my old ones! These ones also has magnets inside them. The idea is to pin the wedge inbetween them.

Like this.

Since I can disassemble these, it makes for easy painting.

End pieces sanded and ready for painting!

I started off by painting them with a filler primer. I chose this as it fills up any imperfections after not sanding enough, or print imperfections.

A dab of the old “Satin White” ..

… and some R2 Blue…

… add a little rub and buff …

… and the assembly should be ready for mounting on the droid.

I must say I am very happy with the results. The rub and buff really looks like metal!

Next up, fixing the magnets to the droid..

All in all, a great upgrade. Next up is adding the new Ankle Details in aluminium and then weather the new pieces on the ankle.

Finale assembly:

By micke|2016-12-06T00:00:10+01:00August 30th, 2015|Building, R2-D2|Comments Off

A working Computer Interface Arm…

For a while, I’ve really wanted to make a working “computer interface arm”. I had one made in aluminium a while ago, but this proved to be way too heavy for my styrene droid, so I decided to sell it.

When looking at the movie, R2 “flips up” his arm, then the tip extends, and it rotates as it is inserted into the computer interface.

Image from starwarsscreencaps.com. (c) LucasFilm / Disney.

Most likely, this is accomplished by some sort of magnet lock, and it is actually the wall panel that rotates, and the tip of the interface arm only “tags along”. It is a hundred times easier to make, and this was after all done in 1976, so most likely, That is what happened.

That is not what I’m planning. I’m planning to make a computer interface arm that can both extend AND rotate!

I plan to accomplish this through a simple method:

The thick part of the interface arm is a hollow plastic tube. The tip is 3D printed and mounted on an aluminium tube.

This tube is inserted into a smaller aluminium tube that is fixed within the hollow plastic tube with 3D printed parts.

Inside the aluminium tube, I mount a stiff cable on a holder from a tackle shop, that can rotate as much as it wants.

The stiff cable goes through the assembly to the back end, where a servo can either push out the tip, or retract it. Pretty much the same way an electric car antenna works.

The tube in which the cable resides, has gears glued on to it, and can through a 360 degree servo rotate in either direction. The stiff cable inside, which controls the extension/retraction movement is still in place, and the small tube with the tip attached to it, rotates around it.

Sounds complicated, and to some degree it is: Have a look at these images and see if it makes more sense:

These pictures have the rear servo taken out for clarity, and also the inside tube removed for clarity. The inside tube would have slots cut out to make contact with the outer gears.

Now that my 3D printer is upgraded and make better parts than ever, it is time to set this all into action! 😀 Stay tuned!

By micke|2016-12-06T00:00:13+01:00August 25th, 2015|R2-D2|Comments Off

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