Time to take R2 apart again!

Well, the poor droid is all apart again!

The feet are being shipped off to my friend Jerry Greene down in Rhode Island. The shop he uses to produce the many parts of R2 will make the cutouts in the feet for me. With the cutouts made, I can then begin to install the foot drives in each foot.
Its quite the process to get R2 all apart. First, the skirt piece has to be attached, as it holds everything in place. It also fits perfectly on this wooden stool I use. With the legs off the ground, its just a matter of unbolting the legs from each shoulder motor and voila!

Now that the feet are removed and ready to be shipped out, I'm going to take apart each shoulder and replace the motors. The motors that are currently in place do not have a brake assembly, so R2's legs aren't locked in place.

Over the next few weeks, more electronics will arrive. The PCB-1 and PCB-2 controller boards will arrive. PCB-1 is similar to a computer motherboard in size and contains several motor controllers. PCB-2 connects to PCB-1, adding computer control to the system. A laptop computer with specialized software can send PCB-2 instructions, which commands PCB-1 to activate specific motors.

Clear as mud? Yeah, its geeky and technical. (Awesome, isn't it?)

That's all for now!

New arrivals! Periscope, lifter mechanism & dome plate

More goodies arrived from Daniel over to DroidStuff.Com!

Below is the "domeplate". This mounts inside of R2-D2's head (dome). On the plate will mount the Lifter Mechanism. As you can see, it has long open slots so that everything can be positioned properly.



Check this out...a solid aluminum periscope. This will sit inside the dome. All that needs to be done is paint, lights and hookup to the lifter.

Last but not least, the Lifter Mechanism. The motor is on the bottom. The periscope will be mounted on top of where the black piece is. It already has the sensors on the top and bottom, so the lifter will stop automatically when it reaches the top or bottom. The bottom piece will attach to the dome plate.

I haven't done a lot of building lately...just no time. However next up is taking apart my R2-D2 some more...the feet have to come off. They'll be shipped to Rhode Island where the cutouts will be made for the motor mounts!

Progress...slowly but surely!

Aluminum Holographic Projectors arrived!

Well these have been a long, long wait to get. When they were offered before, I just couldn't afford them. Finally, several months ago, I was able to get on the list to have some made....

My little R2-D2 is one step closer to having all the detail pieces it needs to be assembled.

Later this week, some detail pieces for the feet/battery boxes should arrive.

Hopefully in the next few weeks I'll be able to purchase some of the motors and electronics.

That's my update for today!