NPC 2212 motors for R2's feet arrive!

Finally, I am the proud owner of two NPC 2212 motors! Thanks to the R2 Builders Club affiliation, I got them for $135 each instead of paying $155 each.

To give some scale to just how large these are, to the right is a quarter.

Since this weekend will be rainy, I can work on assembling these into the foot drives Jerry Greene made for these. I already bought smaller belts based on the feedback from others with the same drive system.

Slowly we're getting there!

Spin lines persist despite steel wool!

The spin lines are probably something I am obsessing over that I probably shouldn't. However every time I gaze at that dome, they jump right out at me.

Continuing from last time, I went around and used some #1 steel wool on the dome. The top and mid height area isn't too bad, however once you get near the lower panels, its pretty bad...still.

Here's how it looked when it started tonight...


Here is a good picture of the tiny grooves I am doing battle with (after going over with 0000 grade steel wool)...



I'm not really sure how much more sanding I should bother with. The dome will "dull over" since that's how aluminum ozidizes when left unpolished. But we'll see....I hope to get some feedback from fellow builders and see what they think!

Some more R&J Dome sanding

I took a break from working on R2's body to try to get the dome sanded up again.

Initially I was going to let some professional polishers get rid of the deep spin lines that have been driving me crazy since I got them dome in 2003. If I had to rate how pleased I am with the dome's finish, I would have to give it a 7 out of a possible 10. That said, every few months I grovel and spend a few hours trying to sand them out again.

With heating costs skyrocketing up here in the northern states, my budget for R2 is going to be really tight for quite some time. Things like professional polishers won't happen, I just do not have the budget for it. Not when I need to get the electronics and other components! So, the "fat" has to be cut from the budget. (If only our pork-barrel politicians thought the same!)

With all that said, I pulled the dome out of storage and gave it a once over with number 1 steel wool. The dull shine I want is there, its just those lines....here's how the dome looks after a light once-over with steel wool...


While at Lowe's for an errand, I bought a 100 grit and 150 grit sponge-sanding-block. These things are really nice, but the sad part is that they do not last very long. I wet sanded the dome with the sanding block so as debris was easier to deal with. Just rub a spot then with a water bottle handy, dribble water onto the spot you were sanding. Here's two pics of "after" I had wet sanded with the 100 and 150, then poured water on the dome to clean it up....

Right now its drying in the breeze...tomorrow, I'll give it a once over with 0000 grade steel wool. The remaining areas that have lines....well, my thought at the moment is just leave em.

Picked up motor wires and tubing

Once again, Lowes to the rescue.

I picked up two 12-foot lengths of stranded, 10 guage wire. After asking what others where using for wiring up the NPC 2212 motors, I decided to go with a thicker wire based on the higher amperage draw the motors have. 14 or 12 probably would have been fine, but why not play it safe
.

The clear tubing you see, a 1 foot length, is for the wires to pass between the outer ankle and into the leg. It will prevent the wires from being chaffed while "hiding" the red and black wires from view.

I took a closer picture in case anyone was wondering what the dimensions were...1/2" OD x 3/8". This holds both wires perfectly while not being too tight or too loose.

I'm still determining what I will need to power the motors. I'll have the batteries wired, in parallel (two 12 volt, 18amp), into a second fuse block. That fuseblock will hold a 30amp blade-style circuit breaker. The motors will then be wired into that.

That's all for now!

Spectrum BR6000 receiver arrived

I got the call a few days ago from Warren over to King's Mountain RC that the receiver arrived. This receiver is different from the one that comes with the DX6i in that it has the failsafe, so if signal is lost to the remote, it powers down everything.

On-line these are $49 plus shipping. Warren sold it to me for $43. Another great "buying local has its rewards" story!

Here it is...it's tiny!
My big complaint about Spektrum has been the lack of completeness, information and all out poor customer support on their website. There is no information in the manual on what power leads (2? 3?) that the receiver needs. They do not include the receiver battery pack nor the wiring to s switch. If its not included, fine, say so in the packaging or the manual. But the lack of information has slowed down my planned installation and is a real dragg. Thankfully Warren has some connections so he will call and find out what is needed to get the receiver wired up and powered up.

If you email them, plan on a month for a short, snippy response. I asked which of their power packs would be best for the BR6000 since it wasn't listed on the website. The reply I got was "Most any power source should work". Umm, great, but...I don't know. I'm in the customer support biz and scribbling non-informational one-liners isn't going to do your PR any favors. Pretty much the only thing keeping me to this make/model/brand is I bought it for a good price. It also had a good reputation amongst other robot guys. Knowing what I know now, I would've spent the extra hundred bucks or so and bought a Futaba.

So hopefully we can get this RC electronics mess sorted out to the point I can finally use it.

Sorry for no updates!

Last weekend was my 20th high school class reunion...Class of 1988, can you beleive that?

Anyways, with the really humid weather we have had...we even have a Tornado Watch posted all day today....I haven't done a thing to the poor droid. Its just been one of those weeks!

However, I did manage to finally order my NPC 2212 motors, which will power R2's feet. I called NPC direct and if you mention you are part of the R2 Builders Club, they give you a $20 price break on each motor. Heck, that's an excellent savings! So, another milestone of sorts. Now I need to keep pinching my pennies to purchase the controller card for the motors! At $395, its not cheap.

Hopefully when the weather cools down a bit, I can find the time and energy to resume building!

Figuring out where to place batteries

Where oh where to put batteries in this thing!

The 2-3-2 system really robs me of valuable space. As tempted as I am to remove it, I am also trying to improve it to make it worth keeping in the droid!

The slide blocks that the entire system goes up and down on has 2 bolt heads that come pretty close to where one would like to mount a battery...(see pic).


Now I would use those side batteries for the 24 volt system. Users of that system are the 2-3-2 system and the shoulder motors. That's it. Alternatively, I think I have some room on the bottom front part of the frame to work with. There I would place two 12 volt 7amp batteries that would power the electronics. Dome lights, motor controllers, the whole bit.


Now the real brain teaser.

How do you power two very high amperage NPC 2212 motors that would LIKE 12 volts and 28 amps? A battery of that size is 6 inches wide. There is no room to accomodate anything 6 inches wide.

So, while carefully keeping in mind the room the center foot takes while inside the body, I started measuring. I went to the local Batteries Plus and found they have Powersonic 12volt 18amh batteries. They are 3 inches wide, but tall. Two COULD fit (see below) in the rear part of the body. However it would put a real punch of a electronics panel in the back. I would have to create a rather short electronics panel. However, I could try to create one that uses both sides of the board (alu plate to G10). Furthermore, many builders have opted to mount more of their electronics inside the dome. Since I am extremely limited in space, I may have to!

So much to think about...every part of this little droid has been complicated!

I still need to figure out how to create some locking mechanisms that would lock the leg into position. Something that would "pin" the leg in, maybe a pin mounted on an actuator, so that the shoulder motors could "release" the load onto those devices.

Bah...too much to figure out for now ;-)

Doors get another coat of paint, eyeballing the rear skins

Today I just had some time to dab on some paint and do some serious "thunking" over the rear skin assembly.

First, I gave the front door panels another coat of Satin White. I noticed that they were a lot whiter than the skins the other day, so a coat or two should get them "caught up".


Since I smelled a skunk in the area, I figured that was a really good excuse to go indoors.

I clamped on the outer skins to the inner skins this evening to just ponder the best approach.

Having watched others blog about their experiences...I have decided to offer them a generous cash award to do mine! (Just kidding!)

One thing I have to figure out is if I want access to the electronics without taking the entire skin panels off. As I have the older frame, the idea of moving the screw location away from the legs would help with that....but it would remove much needed tension to keep the skins lined up where they meet each other on the sides.

If I do want to have the rear panel hinged or removable, now is the time to make the cut out in the inner skins.

Its also worth figuring out what adhesive to use to bond them together this time. I liked the 3M stuff, but the lesson learned is to go heavy on BOTH surfaces, not just one!

And the big lesson is to paint everything THEN assemble. After gave us a poor paint job on the front skins!


Anyways, that's my thought process and post for today!

Octogan port mounted

Today I wanted to get the front octagon port installed. At first, I was thrown off because I had the thing sideways, so it was not going flush with the skins. Essentially, the cuts are made so that it matches the curve of the skin. Once I had finally figured out which was was right, I went ahead and siliconed it into place from behind.

The little fella is starting to take shape.

I also did some additional paint coats to the doors and side pieces that covers the gap between skins (right of octoport in last pic). Right now they need another coat or two of satin white to match the rest of the droid.

I am debating how best to get the vent panel piece...the blue piece around the center vents...into place. There's not a lot of surface area for silicone but I may take the skins off and see if it works better that way.

Last on my "how will I pull THIS off" list is the side vents. The way these things are made, they can't be glued to the skins. I have seen where some people mount them into the frame, the slide the skins under the lip of the vent. But that calls for a lot of fancy manuevering. So, I think I am going to look into getting some rare earth magnets and some L-brackets. My thought is after the skins are attached, these could be "popped" into place via magnetic force.

But...we'll see!

Front coin return in, power coupler surround installed, coupler started, side vent work

Lot's to show and talk about this time!

After much fussing, the silicone did its job on the coin return. Given the tight tolerances involved with the part and the cut out for it to fit in, I think it looks fine. I just need to clean up the dried silicone...at least with silicone, when I make a better set of skins next time around, I can just pry everything out and rub it clean.


The side vents I bonded together with JB Weld Qwik are pretty solid. However now that its hardened, I need to grind/sand the areas smooth that make contact with the skins. As it is now, it will not sit flush.


I found the best tool wasn't any of the grindstones but the wire brush. It really whizzed right through the JB Weld with ease. Its pretty darn dusty work though. Make sure you have long sleeves or you'll feel like you are sandblasting your own arm. Be careful how close to the plate you get, you don't want to cut away the epoxy that's holding everything together!


After much debate, I have apparently sold my soul to silicone.

While the drying time is a few hours, if you can clamp the part into place and hold it solid, silicone will do the rest for you. I had envisioned much more fancy ways to hold things into the skins. However with my skins not being all they should be, I am opting to techniques that allow for easy removal of the detail pieces. When I get another set of skins and have those bonded together better, I can transfer all the detail pieces to the new skins.

With that said, I decided that the cut out Kevin made to the inner skins a few months ago would be perfect for silicone. I clamped the surround plate in place, checked that no light was shining through from any side, then used a popsickle stick and large globs of silicone to literally caulk the piece into place.


I did the sides and bottom part Friday afternoon....


...and Saturday morning, with the silicone dry, I removed the clamps and siliconed the rest of the surround plate.

With all this silicone goop everywhere, you'd think SpiderMan was putting this thing together!

Finally, I debated the best way to mount the coupler. Could I mount it onto the frame so the skins fit smoothly over it? Or, would it just be easier to simply silicone that into place in the surround piece?

Well...I decided to just silicone it to the surround. There is no adhesive between the pieces, I have just literally "caulked" the coupler to the surround plate. I had to shim the bottom of the coupler to be snug against the face plate while the silicone cured.

I think this should hold the part well. Once that is dry, I'll do the sides for more support.

And here's how R2 looks at this point. One thing I have already noticed from removing the skins so many times is that my blue paint is taking a beating. The data port and utility arms are both already missing some paint. Ugh! Oh well...he's been through how many wars in the movie? I'll let him look a little worn.

Another try at the pocket vent, started front coin return

I had an hour or so of time to do a bit more work on R2 tonight.

The pocket vents are my latest frustration. Mounting them is tough because the frame, an older design, has frame rails in the way. Since this is a curved surface, its no easier to work on with the skins on the frame, or the skins off.

My first thought was to use silicon to simply glue it on. But that idea went sour when I tried doing that, then realized if I ever removed the skins, chances are they warble off. They are on the end of the skin, so they get the brunt of the "whip" when the skins are unscrewed and "pop" off the large data port.

I was toying with the bag of parts and pieces I bought last night and realized that due to the frame rails, one side has less than a 1/2 inch til it comes into contact with the rail. (See pic, left side of piece)


I measured and figured out that if I cut the included mounting tab in half, it would ft and make contact with the skin, perhaps "bracing" it into place.


That actually works, but allows for a bit of vertical movement. Not much but enough to drive me nuts. I then cut up some scrap metal, scraps from the skins, and siliconed a piece under the tab. While it did hold it snugger, it still had a wee bit of movement. I cut another tiny piece of material and taped it on top of the first. That worked better. Its not perfect, but its holding it in there. Until I can sort out a better method, I'm going to stick with this for now.



My next battle was with the coin return.

Since my skins are not perfectly lined up, its a real battle to line up this piece into the cutout allowed for it in the skins. Up too high and the bottom isnt sitting on the bottom any more. Too low and it just looks unbalanced. Argh!

I tried to do this with the skins still mounted up but there just wasn't enough area to use clamps on more than one side. So I removed the skins, stood them up to help maintain the curvature, gobbed on some silicone on all 4 sides and clamped away.

I really hate it when I get frustrated and hurry through something. That's how I felt about this piece. I know there has to be a better way to mount it up but for now, I wanted to see if silicone would suffice. Optimally, I should use some sort of tab method like the vent. But we'll see how this turned out.

So that's how today went. A bit frustrating but one little step forward.

Searching for mounting hardware

Yesterday and today have been very hot days up here in Maine. We had temperatures in the upper 80's with humidity hitting the low 70's. That's a pretty extreme change in weather for us north polers!

Needless to say, its just too darn hot to get any real work done. Today I hit the local Surplus/Salvage store (Marden's) that buys up inventory from retailers/wholesalers looking to liquidate inventory. Sometimes you find some deals, sometimes it wasn't worth the gas to drive out there!

Today seemed more interesting. My initial mission was to buy insect spray as I accidentally found a hole in my front yard, buried it and low and behold, it was home to a large colony of bees. Opps! While I didn't find the bug spray, I noticed that the Hardware section had expanded. They had a huge assortment of machine screws and similar fittings. Stainless steel bolts and screws that would usually cost 30 cents or so were 7 cents. While I wasn't really in need of many bolts, I stocked up for droid 2! I also searched for items I could scavenge into various odd jobs.

One item I found was some small slabs. I think they are used as latches for windows, but to me, they could serve as stock metal for cutting/fitting into something in the future.

The other "neat" find was the square nuts. I found some that were 8/32 and others that were 10/24. I noticed how thin they were and began to think how if they were the right size, I could glue these into the skins and have the pocket vent tabs screw directly into these. I have no idea if it will be the right size, but the screws fit!




Now this stuff could just prove to be absolute junk and not work out. But I think we've all caught ourselves wandering around the hardware store, searching for something we can improvise to make work in R2!

Once the weather cools....and my motivation returns...we'll have to see!

Pocket Vent woes, skin fixing, power couplers paint results and Side Vents epoxied

Well it was one of those days.

One step forward, three backwards. Or so it felt.

First thing this morning, I put the front pocket vent up against the skin and wondered how much material I would have to remove from either. It looked like the best method would be to file material off the skins. (Newer versions of the skins are corrected to fit, coincidentally, the corrected version of the pocket vents.)


So, while very noisy, I filed away at the front skins to remove material for the pocket vent to fit smoothly into the skin. I was pretty excited that everything was fitting so nicely that I even broke out the silicone and applied it to all four edges of the pocket vent, thinking this would mount really nicely.

Then, as I pushed the vent into the skins, I noticed that the skins had seperated along one side of the pocket vent cut out. The vibration of the filing seperated the 3M 77 adhesive I used to adhere the skins years ago.

So now I had my hands full of drying silicone. I quickly cleaned up the pocket vent, skins and myself. It just seems that these skins are not meant to stay white.

Pictured below, the "widened" pocket vent cutout in the front skin...

...and below, I put in a lot of Super Glue under the skin area that seperated then clamped it then left it to dry.

While that was drying, I assembled the rear pocket vent now that the blue paint was dry.


Since I was already feeling down, I was hoping that the power couplers would have at least come out nice. Not really. I'm not terribly impressed with the liquid latex at all. I don't have any smooth edges and if you blow up the picture, you'll see my angst.

I've pretty much decided to leave it as it is. R2-D2 is a pretty beat up looking fella in real life, so if a few specks of blue aren't perfect, that's fine. After the issues I am already facing, an imperfect blue paintjob isn't something I'm up to frett over.


And finally, another area I had wanted to get to is my mis-aligned coin slots in the front skins. I was going to file those out but didn't want to cause any more skin damage today. Best left to another day!


However, there was one success story. Rather than overthink how to get the old-style side vents together, I just ran with an idea. I simply mixed up some JB-Qwik and bonded the sides together. I went rather heavy so there's no way those fellas are coming apart. I'm going to review how other have attached them to their skins, or attached them to the sides of the frame.


My other goal was to get the rear skins going.....but after all of this drama, I decided to go mow the lawn. Pick your battles, you know?

Caster 1 mounted for center foot

This is one of those episodes where it was sort of successful. You'll see what I mean as I go on...

Here's the caster with black dots marked, where is where two bolts pass through to mount into the foot structure.

The kicker is one side is in a great spot, the other is a tad too close to the rounded surface.


I drilled out the mounting holes and pass thru holes....


Picture out of sequence here, but here you can see the one bolt (pass thru into the mount structure) that rides into the curve of the caster. As best I can figure, I'll just have to make sure this bolt is the last be to tightened up. Oterwise, it will throw off the alignment of the other screws.

So with that part sort of "settled" I found another small issue. But before confronting that, I wanted to be sure the 1/2 inch bolts would be long enough, with a lockwasher and nut. They are. I could upsize to a longer bolt, but I think this works fine.


...and alas the last remaining issue. I can't fit the last bolt to mount the caster into the plate. But honestly, with the other three holding it tight, plus the two pass thrus holding it, I don't think it will be a real problem from a strength perspective.


With this first one done, I'm certainly going to play and fidget more with the hole alignment. And gawk at the picture of Jerry C's setup some more.

Painted skirt, skin panels, back plates and power coupler

Another busy day!

First, on the front of the skirt, one of the slabs had a tiny "divot" in it, from my over drilling the hole from the backside. For this, I just put a dab of silicone in the hole, scraped it smooth with a popsicle stick (I went with orange, you can consume which flavor you like!). An hour later I put a light coat of primer on it, then 15 minutes later some satin white paint.


While I had the white paint out, I sanded all the primed parts from last week with some 400 grit sandpaper. I then gave each piece a light coat of satin white. The back side of the skirt STILL has wet Loctite on it, apparently not all of the adhesive mixed. Priming over it was a bit of a mess, which I sanded up and cleaned up as best I could. I'll have to basically cover it up in paint. Thankfully its a spot no one will see.


While that was drying, I unpacked the other pocket vent and side vents from a run that was done a few years ago. I just figured while I was priming and painting, I would get these small blue pieces done. On the left is the back plate for the pocket vent while the other two are the side vent plates.


With that part done, it was time to do battle with the power couplers.

Blue masking tape, gas duster, empty baggy, paint brush, liquid latex and a phillips head screw driver, ready to do battle.

After sitting around my workbench for weeks, it was obvious I couldn't wipe free all the dust, even with the wedges removed. Good ole gas duster to the rescue! (Also very effective at removing overweight, curious cats from their quest to investigate your activities!)


Most importantly, bag up those little pieces! And, optimally, remember where you place said little baggie!


While I know I can use Liquid Latex to mask off the coupler, I really wanted to use tape as much as possible. The center part was pretty tough to get just right. My big concern was covering the entire side of the coupler in tape.

And again, the same thing with the face plate. I just didn't want to be brushing latex all day long.


Liquid Latex in place. This took over 2 hours to do and pardon the "colorful metaphors" but doing so really sucked ass. The Liquid Latex goes on very, very thin. I would do one coupler, start on the other, then add another coat to the first. Just to get what you see below was about 4 coats. (After a while, you start convincing yourself no one would have noticed if you bothered to paint them or not!)

I probably should have waited several more hours but after letting them sit in the sun for an hour and a half, I figured it was time to paint them up. If I'm wrong, they get an acetone bath and we try again!

Being very, very small pieces to paint, you really just dab the spray paint on them.


And here we go with the blue....glad everything has tape and latex on them! What a mess!


And finally, some clear gloss to bring out the blue.


While all of that stuff is drying for the next 24 hours, I'm headed back into the shop to work on the center foot casters!