More dome sanding & foot progress with battery boxes

Well I am still sanding my R&J dome by hand. The spin lines are still quite present after a lot of time of 220 and 320 grit sanding. I tried using an orbital sander on a small area but that didn't work out very well. So, as others have suggested...just keep wet sanding by hand. Here's a picture of my current progress....on the left shows the progress while on the right side...the spin lines are still there. More sanding required...


My next challenge was the mounting of the JAG footdrive into the foot shells. After dealing with a lousy drill and a punch tool that wasn't quite up to the task of steel, I finally got them all mounted in. The next issue to resolve was the battery boxes. The bottom of the battery box comes in direct contact with the motor mount....

Here's another shot (below) of the battery box and motor mount bracket....

The rub is this: The steel outer feet are from a batch that had the side contours made incorectly. To overcome this in the past with the battery boxes, I just mounted them a bit higher. However this is just high enough to require a cut be made for the motor bracket to pass through.

I really hate cutting these beautiful parts, so I measured and measured over and over again. I then Dremeled out a small notch for the bracket to fit in...

And there's the end result. The battery box now fits perfectly! In a few weeks I should have enough money stashed to buy the NPC 2212 motors. Then the next big question will be if the motor fits completely in the battery box. I think it should but I know others have had to whittle the motor cap down a bit.

There's the latest update for today! Back to sanding!

More work on the feet

Well I finally broke down and did a bit of work on my feet. I found a set of drill bits that I had bought a few months ago and figured I'd make some progress!

My drill, a Black & Decker piece of (colorful metaphor) continues to spin out on me, despite any of its 24 clutch settings. Thus, most any effort I make to do things that require the drill end in frustration. Someday I'll break down and just spend the $100~$150 for a top of the line model that can actually, God forbid, drill!

So here is what the foot looks like with the foot-drive system mounted inside. All I really had to do was drill the 4 holes on top of the foot shell and bolt them in. Thanks to the JAG design, its not rocket science (which explains how I can do it!).

Progress continues on the dome. Myself and my girlfriend's 5 year old daughter spent an hour on it the other night, going round and round with 800 grit sandpaper, wet sanding away. I would really love to use an orbital sander or mouse sander to speed up the process. However I am worried I would get those over-polished spin lines all over the place. So, as it stands now, we'll just continue to use some elbow grease on it.

Gifts from Katie's Dad

Well today the mailman brought me some cool goodies from Albin Johnson. Albin is Katie's Dad, the inspiration behind R2-KT. I had donated some electronic parts (front and rear Processor Status Indicators..the red/blue yellow/green lights on R2's head). Albin wanted to thank me for the contribution and sent me not only a T-Shirt and Patch, but the limited edition R2-KT toy figure that HASBRO made! The proceeds all go to the Make-A-Wish Foundations of South Carolina and San Diego.

September Parts Update

Some new parts and pieces have arrived throughout the summer!

First are the "diet" ankle detail pieces, as you can see, a lot of additional cutouts were made in the pieces to reduce weight. Tom Doucet offered these and he did an equally impressive job in how he shipped and packaged them!

The next two photos are of Mark Hamester's PCB 1 and PCB 2, these are control boards for R2-D2. The first one is a motor controller, which is where the motors will receive their commands from. This board can handle most of the tasks one would give it but I'll be using a different controller for the foot motors. Those require something that can handle higher volts & amps. Pictured below is PCB 1.


The photo below is a picture of PCB 2. This board links to the PCB 1 motor controller board and offers computer control to it. Meaning, using Mark's software, you can use an onboard computer to control R2-D2's functions. Its a novel step towards artifical intelligence! Mark has been actively programming away at his program. I look forward to playing with it once I have my R2 wired up.

Finally, in the picture below is the Dual PSI controller board. It requires some assembly and essentially controls the "two blinky lights" on the front and back of R2-D2. I already have these lights but since the price was good for this part, I thought I'd buy one as a spare. One of the New England Builders also offers a light system that really looks superb, so before long I'll have three methods to light up those lights!

As for real, meaningful progress....sorry, still nothing yet! Life has been very busy so other tasks have taken priority. There are several excellent part runs being offered, such as a new version of the aluminum frame and so forth. I plan to migrate the best pieces of my current R2 into the new frame. Meaning, I'll have TWO R2-D2s in various stages of construction! Fun!

That's it for now!