Star Wars Day at the Newport Cultural Center

Saturday was Star Wars Day at the Newport Cultural Center.  R2-D2 and I attended this event last year and appeared with the Mandalorian Mercs, a Bounty Hunter group.  

As it had been all week, it was extremely hot and humid outside.  Just loading and unloading R2 into the van got the sweat going.  Thankfully the Cultural Center is air conditioned.

The Mercs appeared first, with about 50-60 kids waiting to greet them.  R2 and I came in about 15 minutes later.

After posing for pictures, everyone headed to the conference room for Star Wars Trivia.  We ended the afternoon snacking on Wookie Cookies and thanking our hosts for having us over.

Mercs are set to head out and greet the crowd

Picture time

Yours truly, taking pictures

New England R2 Builders Summer Get-Together

Last weekend was our annual get-together.  I say "Annual" because we always manage to have one...sometimes a second one before the end of summer or fall!

Kevin Helmig hosted the event from his spacious new home in Amherst, NH.  That made for a 3.5 hour drive for me and others came from other impressive distances as well.  

The New England group really spans beyond that.  Many are in New York, Canada, New Jersey (What exit?  Sorry, old joke!) and points beyond.  We try to pick a date and location that works for everyone.  

Here's some pictures...

This is the prototype Lifter/Riser device for use in the dome for the periscope, life form scanner and potentially the light saber chucker!

Those incredible aluminum JAG rocket boosters

This is my second R2-D2 sporting some new modifications

The wood blocks keep the ankles locked in place.

The weather was hot, very very hot!  We had about 15-20 builders of various phases of build.  What's really great about our gatherings is we aren't walking around with pocket protectors, quoting the movie.  We all have a sincere, genuine passion to build the R2-D2 robot we all like from the movies.  Everyone has a favorite film, everyone has a different way of doing their build.  You learn so much when you can interact with other builders and see how they went about their droid, different materials and so on.  

I'm already looking forward to our next gathering!  We plan to work on our group plans to get to the Star Wars Celebration Six in Orlando, FL next summer!
 

Barbara Bush Children's Hospital visit

Last Friday R2-D2 and I paid another visit the BBCH in Portland, Maine.  They are a 2 hour drive south from me and they asked when I would be in the area again.  Since this is the weekend of the New England R2 Builders get together in New Hampshire, this date worked out well!

I invited my brother, Greg, to join me since he lives right in Portland.  We put him to work, handling the digital camera for the staff so they can print the pictures out for the staff.

Once up on the floor, I prepped R2 and disinfected the surfaces with the wipes they provided.  We were set to go and the Child Life Specialist lead the way for us.

As usual, I can not take pictures with the patients due to privacy but one parent gave us her blessing to share a great photo of her daughter with the child life specialist and R2-D2

One of the volunteers named "Ann" was fantastic to work with.  

Once we finished up, my brother posed for a photo with his aluminum "nephew"...

 And of course, all of us together...

We really enjoyed our visit with the children and staff.  Greg had to head out and R2 and I stayed put for a little while for staff and families to pose for pictures.  The security staff was gracious enough to provide us with a large cart and muscle to load and unload R2 to the floor.  

Trips and events like this make the whole R2 building experience extremely rewarding.  We brought many, many smiles today and look forward to visiting again sometime soon!

Wiring up the Slip Ring Connector & testing it

Tonight I picked up where I left off, resuming the process of slowly soldering in the wire leads.  The nice part about the first end is you can put any wire anywhere, you have to match it up on the other end!  

 I found that if I put a small amount of solder on the top of the connector, then slid the wire into place wearing a shop glove, I could then re-heat that solder and it would fill around the wire.  

 Every 4 wires, I would stop and test the connection with the multimeter, this way I didn't get too far ahead of myself.  I used all the solid colored wires first, then went on to the rest from there.  Once I had the connector all wired up, I jotted down what color wire was in what pin in the connector.

Next up was to slide the shrink wrap down to help reinforce the connectors to the wiring.  Since I lack a heat gun or a hair dryer (I'm bald...seriously!)...I used a match.  Some of the shrink tubing I used at first was too thin, the stuff I bought recently fit perfectly over the connector....

Again I wont win any awards but for a first effort...I'm happy with it.

Next up was assembling the DB-25 clam shell and squeezing the wires to fit.

Happy that everything went together, I opened the clam shell piece up and wanted to again test all the pin outs and the wire leads on the other end of the slip ring.  After all the work so far, I wanted to make sure everything was still checking out OK.  I mean, 24 thin wires on little connectors...and a lot of shoving and tugging...something HAD to pop loose, right?

Much to my surprise, everything checked out as working fine!

Now I just need to tin the wire leads on the other end and connect those into the other connector.  Half way there!

Tinning the slip ring wires and connecting to the DB25 connector

Up here in Maine we are in the midst of the hot, muggy days.  Once the temperature goes past 75F and the humidity rises to over 65%, I start to melt.  As such, I took refuge inside, enjoying the air conditioning and getting some more work done on the slip ring.

First I had to pick up some more thin shrink wrap tubing and a DB25 clam shell, which will eventually cover the connector.  My local retailer, ICC North in Brewer had everything I needed.  (I love supporting local small businesses whenever I can)

The next step was to make sure the wires were twisted and ready for tinning.  With such a thin wire, you do not need to very hot iron.  You heat the wire from underneath and slowly apply the solder to the heated wire.  It goes on very smoothly and just requires some practice to go on well.  With 48 wire leads, you will eventually master it!

Now it is very important to have a multimeter handy for the next step.  As you solder in the wires into the DB25, you can to test each end ....put a paperclip in the DB25 and touch a probe on that side, then on the other end of the slip ring, touch the matching bare wire lead.  You want to make sure you have continuity and verify the connection will work.

 
The trickiest part is getting the leads into the DB25 connector.  Someone suggested putting some solder in the "bucket", heat it and stick the wire in.  Don't do that.  That's sucks!  Without burning yourself, I found the best process was this:  

1)  Make sure you trim the wire lead so you do not have too much exposed wire showing.

2)  Put a small amount of solder on your solder iron.  

3)  As you place the wire lead into the connector, use that small dab or solder to position the wire into the bucket.  Its really hard (for this newbie) to get the iron in the right position around those little connectors.  I added more solder when I was satisfied I had a good connection and verified it with the multimeter

I have the shrink tubing already on the wiring, so when all the soldering is done, I can reinforce the solders with that.

Per the instructions, I skipped pin 7 since this is a 25 pin connector and we have a 24 wire slip ring.

As you can see, my soldering will not win me any awards...and hopefully will improve as I go!  

Prepping the Slip Ring

After doing some more research on the slip ring setup others have done, I felt I had enough information and confidence to proceed!

The wires need to be stripped back about 1/4 of an inch so they can be tinned and installed into the DB25 connector.  

Its very slow work, the wire is very thin.  I wish my wire stripper could do 28 gauge wire.  I used the cutter to gently tug the outer layer off.  On a few, I pulled away some wire too.  

The next step is to find some very small wiring shrink wrap and cut it into small sections. We do not want the wires touching one another or contacting other leads once soldered into position.

As I slid these onto the wires, I clamped them into an alligator clamp so they will not fall out.  I ran out of shrink wrap tubing so I will pick some more up tomorrow and begin the process of tinning the exposed wire ends.

More tomorrow!
 

Assembling the Slip Ring connection cards

Today, after gaining some more information on how piece these together, I started work on them.

The kit that was offered last year consists of two cards that are used on each end of the slip ring, an electrical connector that rotates 360 degrees.  The Slip Ring has 24 wires which are eventually soldered to two 25 pin connectors.  Each other those plug into a card like these, allowing for electrical power and signal communications to pass thru.

The first step is to place and solder the two-terminal screw connectors.  I used tape to hold them into place, flip over and then solder.

Once those are soldered into position, the next step is to place the signal pins into the PCB.  They fit very snug and while they probably do not require soldering, I opted to do so while I had the iron out and ready to go.

The pins are very small and my soldering iron tip seems to have two settings; too cold and too hot.  I am trying to not damage the pcb with the soldering iron being too warm.  I just slowly apply heat to the connector and let it melt the solder. 

Next up is installing the 25-pin, right angle connector.  No soldering is required for this.

 I did the same thing to the second slip ring connector card.  The next step is to do some pre-planning, to make sure the center of the frame has room for the connector to fit thru it.  Then, after referring to the manual that came with this, determining what wire will go where.  I need to purchase some terminal blocks so that the one 12-volt lead can be split up to go into the two inputs on the card.