Starting something new...

Thinking about trying to build another droid...  The print is kind of rough, but with enough sanding and bondo it could be good enough...

 

(02-07-2018) R2!

Here is R2 as he currently looks.  He's almost fully assembled - just a few things to do to the feet and legs, but otherwise he's almost done externally.  Internally, he has sound, lights and the ability to rotate his dome, but the foot drives still aren't finished.

Last August I spent a few weeks pushing to get him to look like a finished R2 and now he looks fantastic (IMHO).  One of these days I'll work on finishing the wiring and getting him where he can move about - but for now I'm very happy with just having him as he is.

I also have a Mouse droid in the works and started 3D printing a BB-8, but those will progress after R2 is mobile.

(6-15-2017) Long time since I updated...

I just looked at my blog and it had been over a year since it had been updated, but I have been working on R2.

First of all the skin frames front and rear have been powder coated - the next two images are of the skins just mounted onto the frame, but not glued together.

Then I worked on the rear door, put magnets to attach it to R2's frame and finished it out.  This is an image where the rear panels are being glued using some tape to hold them in place until they dried.

 Then I glued the rear skins together and added the door panels...  At this point the back side of R2 is done!

The next thing I wanted to do was finish the front skins, but I'm still waiting on some more parts (and there I thought I had everything I needed...) - so I put the front skins on hold and moved on to testing out the electronics that I built years ago...

The lights and sound work great, but the dome control wasn't working at all.  I tried to buy a new controller to see if that would fix the problem, but I couldn't find one - so I had to update my control system to something else...

This is a test with the new control system, using an XBox 360 controller, and it works great.  No lights in this video, but they work great.

Since this video I've also added a slip ring (used for things like steering wheel controls in cars) to allow power and signal to travel from the body to the dome.  This allows for the dome lights and accessories to be powered from the battery inside the body of R2.  It also makes it so that when I power up R2, the lights come on automatically, instead of having batteries inside the dome that had to be powered on separately.

I've also been working on the legs, the center leg/foot is ready, but the outer legs still need quite a bit of work before those are ready.  

And that's the status of R2 at the moment.  I'm sure there is more that I've done to him that can't think of at the moment, but he's a lot of fun to power him on and see him light up and make some noise.

(05-30-2016) Rear door

I finally cornered Jody and got him to cut the rear access door in the back skins for R2.  It's was a bit nerve wracking, but it's finally finished and it looks great!

This is with both back skins installed, but without the rear door.

And this will be the rear door for accessing batteries, electronics and other gadgets inside of R2.

Not sure what will happen next - painting the skins or mounting the hinges for the body doors.

(02/19/2016) - Powder coating continues...

This weekend I was able to powder coat the center foot, skirt and battery boxes.  I believe that all that remains to be powder coated are the skins now, but there is a lot of assembly and testing to do before those can be painted.  Things are moving along, and hopefully soon I'll have R2 finished.

(01/13/2016) Outer skins mounted

My friend Jody came over and helped drill the holes and counter sunk them on the outer skins.  I still need to file some spots, like around the coin slots for example, to allow things to fit better and I need to work on the body hinges as well, but I'm glad to see the skins on the frame.

The battery box issues that I had in the previous post have been dealt with and I just need to finish cleaning and painting them, as well as figure out a good way to mount them to the feet.

I *believe* that the battery boxes, skirt and skins/doors are all that remain to be powder coated.

(08-30-2015) Battery boxes and other R2 foot related stuff

R2 is still being worked on, but I ran into a bit of a problem with the battery boxes.  I was threading in a KHF (knurled hose fitting) that holds the battery cables on the feet when it suddenly seized and wouldn't turn any more.  I tried both ways, but it wouldn't come out, and in the end I destroyed the KHF and mangled the threads in the aluminum battery box as well.  This was a massive disappointment - but it will be fixed.

I'm now trying to find a tap that will fit the threads and re-cut them, but for now I'm in a holding pattern until I can find what I need to continue working on those.  The best news is that there is a current run of KHF on the Astromech.net site - so even though I destroyed one I was be able to buy some new ones and get the feet finished.  Usually the wait time for a part you need can take a year or more, so this was really very lucky.

I also disassembled a foot drive for test fitting and checking the mounting points to the feet.  I hope to sometime this week get the feet drilled, foot drives reassembled and mounted together - then I should be able to have R2 standing on his legs for the first time.

I've also worked on running air lines in the shop and hope to get my sandblasting cabinet installed soon so I can strip and repaint a few things that I wish had turned out better.