electronics

Skirt complete and first steps..

So, I gook the R2 unit outside and sanded it off good, before going wild with a 2-component bond (Plastic Padding). This was supposed to harden within 10 minutes.

To my surprise it had still not hardened and really started stinking up the place real good after about an hour.

Guess it pays to take out *everything* from the box. It was a 2-component bondo, so I forgot to mix in the hardener..

Ah well, take it out again and scrape off as much as I could, before applying a new layer.

This time it DID harden, and I sanded most of the skirt. I will go over it once again before painting, but all in all, I’m really happy with how it came out.

What do you think?

Yesterday was another day with my cold still not allowing me to move about as I wanted, so it was a calm day. Spent the evening fiddling with the electronics, trying to get a small servo to move by remote control.

No result.

For starters, it seems I had put the LED’s on the controller card facing the wrong way. Guess it was a while ago I was soldering those analog synth modules…

Anyway, after removing the LED’s and trying everything again nothing worked still.

At least the LED’s lit up, but that didn’t really help me.

 

So, at this point, I figured I needed to get something out of the equation, so I called it a night and decided to go and pick up a tethered PS2 controller that is on the “supported” list of my controller card, instead of the unlisted wireless controller…

Back home after todays meetings and usual Friday stuff, I got to work.

Took the R2’s legs down from the shelf, made ankle wedges for them and removed my small caster I had previously installed in my wheels as I realized they would cause more problems.

Finally, It was all about lifting in the experimental wiring I had done on my desk into the R2.

Armed with nothing but tape, I mounted the circuit boards where I could attach them, and tried the controller.

Well .. it moved but not as I wanted. Seems there was still some fine-tuning to be done.

 

Once the channel mixing was engaged on the controller, another try, and this time, something different happened.

I caught it on film but it wasn’t as interested as when I put the dome on and put in my bluetooth speakers inside the body!

Behold: the first steps of R2 … now it really is starting to feel reel. I have an astromech!

After the successful test, I spent the rest of the evening, making a small, but much more neat and handy electronics board:

Notice the über-small 11.1V, 1.3 Ah Li-Po battery at the bottom. Using two 11.1V 6Ah Li-Po batteries rather than two 12V 7.2 Ah Lead batteries will cost about three times as much, but it will save me more than 4 kg’s inside the droid.. Still haven’t decided what to do, but for testing purposes, this will do just fine!

Please note that in this picture, the Sabretooth is not hooked up completely, and the Slip Ring connector board I haven’t even touched =)

Still .. again, it really feels like I have an astromech!

By |2016-12-06T00:01:47+01:00February 24th, 2012|R2-D2|Comments Off on Skirt complete and first steps..
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Slip Ring explanation

I received a question about how my slip ring solution was, and I thought I’d explain it in unnecessary detail here:

 

These are the pieces I cut out and the slip ring on top. The tiny bit goes underneath the long piece with the circle in the middle on the lefthand side. It creates sort of a lip that will go down into the bottom left piece. That, together with the extra flanges on my top ring in the frame will keep this in place.

I have only one acre, that is screwed down in the bottom right piece, that is glued on the location where Dave Everett has placed his dome motor. I have tapped these to 6mm and therefor only need a screw to secure or completely remove the center bar with the slip ring.

Enough talk, pictures will explain better!

Here’s the bottom right part glued into the top ring of the frame.

Bottom left piece glued in place on the top ring. Note the extra flanges on the top ring, creating a nice trench for the center bar to run in.

Tiny piece glued on the long bar. It is glued on sticking out a bit, as it will help lock the bar into place.

Center bar with locking screw and slip ring in place. Since this is a test mount, I don’t know if I can keep the slip ring mounted on top of the bar. I may need to move it below the bar, but you get the picture =)

Close-up of the locking piece…

Slip ring on its center bar locked into place. This is steady enough and easy to remove for maintenance with only one small screw =)

By |2016-12-06T00:01:55+01:00February 15th, 2012|R2-D2|Comments Off on Slip Ring explanation
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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 |2016-12-06T00:02:00+01:00January 9th, 2012|R2-D2|Comments Off on New parts, feet getting done and some more stuff done..
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