Repaired Side Vent bracket, Tom Doucet plastic mounts for PSI's

This afternoon I got a little bit of work done on R2.

I broke one of the L brackets that was JB Welded to the frame on the drive back from New Hampshire. The L bracket has a large, ceramic magnet on it which in turn holds the side vent into place. I really didn't want to deal with JB Weld again yet drilling and tapping into the frame would require a considerable tear down.

So, I went with the $2.95 solution. A mini C-clamp.

Now, the L bracket is securely clamped to the frame, and the side vent can be re-mounted.


While at the New England R2 Builders get together, I had a chance to chat with Tom Doucet of Waterset Parts. He has been prototyping some new plastic pieces for the PSI lights made by Mike Velcheck. He gave me a set and here is what they look like...

Working on R2's electronics bay

Tonight I wanted to clean up the electronics panel. As the days tick by and I add more things to R2-D2, the more the wiring gets a but crazier. The Syren motor controller, receiver and battery pack are just taped in place.


I drilled some holes and mounted the Syren controller on top of some small, plastic stand offs. I used some velcro for the receiver battery, receiver and receiver power switch.

Here's the excellent electronics panel Kevin Helmig came up with. On the left is the Foot Motor controls. Up is ON, middle is OFF and DOWN is charge, so that the trickle charger can plug into the port below and charge the batteries dedicated to foot drive. The right side will power the various body electronics to be added later. They will have their own batteries and with this system, can be charged seperately from the other, larger batteries the motor side will have.

Here's the trickle charger plugged in charging the drive batteries. In hindsight, I wish I had set up my skins to have that port on the front skins!

Progress continues! More later

Current Progress pics

Controller card installed, R2 is rolling!

Thanks to the help of fellow builder Kevin Helmig, my R2-D2 is rolling!

Electronics, especially EXPENSIVE ones, had me very concerned. Not to mention, I know nothing about soldering, fusing....that stuff. So, I asked a pro for some assistance and I watched in amazement as he efficiently wired not only the controller, but created a charging system for the batteries. Very slick!

Just a quick video clip and pictures of how things look now....

What's left? Well, the dome needs to be finished, sound system purchased and installed...then repair some travel damage. After that, its all little things.

More details on my next posting.

Working on the front vents...

Just a short post today...making slow but steady progress on the dome, body and foot drives.

Tonight I did some work on getting the vents to fit into the body. The lower one went in very snug and should stay in place. My upper vent isn't quite done yet. The internal pieces need more trimming and I had to file away at the surround piece to get it to fit.

Here where we are at...getting there!

Progress continues! Droid assembled

With the skins largely done, it was time to re-attach them to the body, then attach the legs and see how everything is lining up.


I'm very surprised how clean it looks, the beauty for a camera flash....up close, its covered in smudges (honest!)

The other half of the dome panels were painted today. They would have been done yesterday but a Duplicolor Blue rattlecan had a nozzles misfire, splattering paint on half the parts. After another sanding, filing, priming and paint....they are drying.

While eyeing everything over, there are a few zillions things I need to tweak. The obvious things that remain to be done are the dome, the shoulder hubs, the battery boxes, yada yada...but...we're getting there!

Mounting the coin slots into the front skins

In hindsight, I would have done these differently, before the skins were bonded together.....however they were attached, so that required some creativity.

After an extensive amount of filing on the coin slot opening in the skins, it was time to shim, bolt and JB Weld the screw heads into the skin. Here's the pieces....an 1.5 inch 4-40 screw with a flat head, aluminum spacer, lock washer and nut.


Here's how it looks pieced together.

I mixed some JB Weld and applied a blob to each screw head, then slowly placed the piece into the skins, which I had laying face down. The coinslots aren't supposed to stick out too far...and since they are on a rounded surface, you have to tweak and adjust accordingly.

I wanted to put some down pressure on the coinslot so that the expoxy bonds well. I used my large file hold the coin slot in position and placed my Mother's polish on top. I'll let this dry overnight, then check tomorrow to see if I got the desired placement.

Paint re-do!

Here we go again...



As you can see if you look real closely....spin lines. I should have sanded the panels thoroughly before painting!



After sanding with 60 grit then 220 grit....

After thoroughly wiped down, I used Duplicolor Etching primer and let it dry for one hour.

I then used two coats of Rustoleum Filler Primer, to smooth anything I might have missed. You can find this primer at Wal-Mart's automotive department.

I'm going to let this dry for 4 hours then make sure the edges are smooth, sanding/filing as necessary. Tomorrow, we'll hit the pieces with the Krider Blue formula again.

Filed out Rear Logic opening, bonded mounting screws and attached vent surround

This afternoon I did some more dome work.

The rear logic display didn't need too much work, just some minor filing on one side.


After testing for fit, I drilled two holes into the inner dome so be JB Welded into place like the holographic projectors will.

I hand tightened the screws for the 4-40 screws that are being JB Welded into place. Once the outer dome is bonded into position, I will not be able to access the screw heads. They need to be epoxied into place so items can be threaded in, without spinning endlessly!

A few dabs of JB Weld is all it takes. When dried, this will be sanded smooth.

And the last thing I tackled with the JB Weld was the vent surrounds. There isn't a lot of space on the inner skins for it to mount to so I opted to apply the JB from behind, so that the inner skin and vent surround will bond together. We'll see how well this works out.

Dome panels painted, working with holographic projectors

This afternoon, it was time to paint not only the dome pieces but some other pieces that needed a blue paint re-do.


Below, the dome ring is now painted blue.

As usual, the R2-D2 blue is hard to photograph...it looks lighter than it really is in this photo...

With the painting done, I moved on to getting the HP's mounted to the dome.

It takes a lot of careful sanding, grinding and filing to get the hole sized right for the HP. Once lined up, its just a matter of drilling the holes, countersinking them and bonding the screws into position. The outer dome will lay flush on top of this one, so the screw heads, bonded into position, will be sanded to assure a good fit.

One done, two more to go!

Polished the 300mm dome

With the 300mm dome now in position, it was time to decide on what to do with the finish.

Out of the box, I thought it looked fine....it didn't have heavy spin lines like my other dome has. If anything, with just some light polishing, it should look fine.



The left side is how it looked out of the box, the right side, polished.



Here's how it looks after simply using Mother's Aluminum Polish and the polishing pad from my mouse sander. Perfect!

Adjusting the dome drive with the 300mm dome

Last night I thought I would mount the rockler bearing to the frame and see how everything fits with the new 300mm dome.

One thing I noticed quickly was that the new dome drive motor shaft will require trimming.


Then, upon looking closer, the dome plate makes contact with the dome drive wheel. Uh oh, not good!

I inquired with some fellow builders on the Astromech website and heard from others who had this issue too. The solution is a series of things. First, lower the dome drive by adding some washers to where it attaches to the frame. Then, cut the excess length off the dome drive shaft. Lastly, add some washers between the rockler bearing and base plate. I added in 3 small washers which worked perfectly.

Here's how the dome drive spacing with the base plate looks now. I also powered up the dome drive and made sure it rotated smoothly...it did.

Starting work on the 300mm dome!

Over the holiday weekend, I made plans to link up with fellow builder Kevin Helmig at his New Hampshire home. Kevin was a professional carpenter before starting his own business and has an amazing workshop. Anytime he invites me over, he teaches me so much!

We were both itching to work on the new 300mm domes that are available to R2 builders.

One thing we noticed right off was the amount of slag, or laser residue from the cutting process inside the outer dome.

In hindsight, at this point, I would suggest taking a mouse sander with 60 grit sandpaper to the inside of the dome. This would knock down a lot of the slag with all the panels attached, saving a good two hours of doing each piece separately!

The first step is to label all of the panels, so that when you begin to piece things back together, you know where everything belongs! I also made sure to number the panel pieces in the upper left hand corner. This way pieces do not go in upside down in the assembly process.


Perhaps the best tool in Kevin's shop was the air compressor and reciprocating saw. Using the thinnest tip available, it really made quick work of the panels. Below, the scrap piece of material under the dome ring...

Outer dome done, now a good hour's worth of filing out all the laser residue.

Now on to the inner dome.

After carefully using the outer dome as a template and ensuring everything is aligned (thus why you really need the outer dome to be smooth and slag free), we can begin cutting out the panels. Kevin showed how to drill near an edge, then use the air saw to slowly work your way around.

Kevin has already built a droid before, so he gave some good ideas on where and where not to cut openings. Here's the results!

Foot strips added to outer feet

Just a short post today....sanded the paint away, used silicone (since it absorbs impacts better) and taped the strips into place!

Frame mods to get the rear access door mounted

So previously, I mounted magnets into the access panel and let those dry overnight.

What I did Friday night was mount some L-brackets onto the bottom of the frame so that the magnets would grip.


With some luck, the brackets are not in the way when the electronics tray is folded down!

One problem I ran into is vertical alignment....while the magnets hold the access panel in place, there is some vertical movement. If I had the power coupler installed in the access panel, it would probably solve this issue. However, I misplaced my power coupler faceplate, so I can not put that in.

As a short term fix, I bolted in a small metal to act as a tab.

Now the rear access panel goes on and here's how it looks...