Did you hear that?

Nope, me either.

Mein MP3 shielden ist gestorben.  (Practicing for CE2 here)

Rough translation, my MP3 shield has done a Death Star on me.  Blown up before the big event.

I have several thoughts as to what could have caused this

1.  I'm powering the Arduino through the barrel connection on 12v.  The arduino should be able to run fine like this, but perhaps there is more current being output into the shield than there should be.

2. The Ground Loop Isolator I'm using is a hunk of junk.  The connections on the PCB inside were touching the casing (which is conductive) so it was essentially doing nothing but adding a bit of weight to R2.

3. I'm rubbish.

4. I'm brilliant, but my wiring is rubbish.


1 and 2 sound like I know what I'm talking about, which leads me to believe it's likely reason 3 or 4.

But either way, I've ordered a new MP3 Shield, a decent GLI and a 5V battery pack :)

So now I plan to run all the arduinos off of 5V's.  This should be a safer current (even though they have built in regulators) and be more power efficient.  It's also adding another layer of safety.  These batteries should out last the drive battery.  Similar to RC cars having a separate battery for the receiver so that they don't lose control.  (Cheers again Brad for the heads up on this :) )

I'm a little nervous about re-wiring so close to CE2!  I've got a week to screw it up and then try and fix it.  It's going to be tighter than Uncle Owens pocket money allowance!

CE2 Preperations

With only a few weeks left to go, the pressure is on to get R2-B4 all up and running again with more bells and whistles than ever before!

So far, I have the dome panels working on servos - just need to map it out on the controller

And I've been making new legs, which are working well for all terrain driving (Still waiting for that call J.J. Abrams ;) I'm local).  They just need a lick of paint and they're ready to go!

I also mentioned in my last blog update, that I have a special surprise planned for CE2.

Well, last night I got to test it out :) It works!  It's much cooler than I anticipated.  Of course, being a big geek I would say that!


I still have a to-do list as long as a wookies arm, but everything is proceeding exactly as I had foreseen.

I cannot wait to get R2 to Germany - showing off to the general public get's a great reaction, let alone to Star Wars fans!

I'm hoping to post lots more updates in the next few weeks.  I'm hoping to add a few more bits to him before our road trip :) I'll also try and bring you regular updates from the event!

Penalty Notice

I went out to my car last night to grab one of R2's legs (he's been travelling a bit lately so not unloaded him) and found this penalty notice under the windscreen wiper.

I had a mini heart attacked and listed MOT, Tax, Insurance... all were fine!

But it was far more serious than I imagined...

Full credit  goes to my 10 year old brother :) No idea where he gets his sense of humor from....

Dome Servos and Leg updates

Welcome back friends.

You may be reading this on a lazy weekend with nothing to do.  Maybe sitting down with breakfast and a coffee, reading it on your phone on the bus, or perhaps you're at working ignoring those reports that don't need to be done till the end of the week anyway.  Wherever you are, thanks for popping back :) I've got a great update today that's not let me stop smiling yet.  One happy builder here :)

There has been moments in R2's build when I've sat back and looked at him and thought.

"Nice.  I built that, he looks awesome.  I'll just tidy up these couple of jobs, but he won't get much more complete than this"

And then I keep seeming to add something new, re-do more than I thought, have a new idea on how to do something else etc.  And he keeps getting better and batter each time!

The dome panels.  How cool are they!?!?!  I had them cut out when I started on my dome with the "intention" (hope) of hinging them and adding servos.  I always knew it was going to be a big job and just wanted to focus on getting R2 looking finished on the outside.

But now they've gone from being hinged to being hinged on a servo!

So far all of the panels are servos.  I just need to find the closed and open positions on the servo and put them in the code.  Once I've done that, Brads very clever scripts should just running straight on to my droid! 

So with Celebration Europe only a few weeks away, R2-B4 is looking like he may be able to show off a little bit after all!

I've also been trying out the new legs.  Well, one of them as it's the only one finished so far.  But I've also locked the 4WD in much tighter and wanted to test out the 2 center casters on as rough of a surface as I could get away with.  This is how he holds up :)

J.J. Abrams, if you really want me to, I'm open to changing career for the next couple of years..  Just get your people (Lucasfilm) to call my people (I call him Dad) and we'll talk ;)

So it's been a pretty productive week!  Dome panels hinged, legs upgraded, CV updated, surprise lined up.

A surprise?  Yes indeed :)  Unfortunately my fellow blog friends, you'll have to wait till after CE2 to find out what it is.  As far as I'm aware, there is no other droid that has done what I have planned (and very almost ready).  Once I get to show off a bit at CE2, I'll reveal it all!

Leg's again

I can't seem to get enough of blogging at the moment!

Legs a going full steam ahead :D 

Here's the test assembly.  The box section is too long at the moment, but that was intentional.  I will be cutting it down soon enough :)

All of the bolts are going through the plastic and then into the aluminium assembly.  I counter sunk all the holes, but the bolts seem to have a lot of head on them!  I don't mind them stick out a tad, and will leave the majority of them on show (kinda like it), but the top two bolts underneath where the leg to body hub attaches have had to be filed down a bit as they'll be sitting underneath the hub, so they'll need the clearance.

Back to the good ol' days of gluing styrene!  Ah toxic fumes, how I've *cough* missed you *gag cough*  Using the trademarked JamesS-Super-great-getting-the-thing-that-makes-things-right-angled method.

And here's proof the assembly fits!  Still a few more bits of styrene to cut out and then I can glue it all up, thread lock the nylocks, and seal it all for good!

Updates on the legs

These are threatening to turn out sexier than my own legs.

Though I suppose that because I've made them, they are my legs in a sense.  I'm making them in my own image ;) So I can live with that!


This is just a quick progress update really, but they're coming along great!  The back of these has been broken now, but still a lot of assembling and painting to go so could be a while before I get a chance to fit these :(

Just a couple of machining shots.  Nothing too exciting.  Not for normal people anyway :)  For those non normal people, I used tabs on these parts to help speed the process up.  Simpler to just clamp the material down rather than bolt it down and create new tooling for it.  This is the first time I've used tabs on a job too, so it was nice to experiment!

Tidied up and put in place.  God I'm good!

So, the box section at the side has been cut down and had 4 holes drilled in the right places.  There will be two of these box sections in the leg, one on either side.  This should create a very nice and sturdy leg.  

Not pictured, I've also machined out the correct holes on the styrene so everything should be spot on.  Just need to counter sink some holes, cut out a load more styrene, assemble it all and paint it.

Only a little over 40 days to go until CE2 and still have a huge list of jobs to do!

HInges!

With all the excitement that's been going on here lately, I'm not sure if you guys can handle this next bit.

Long time subscribers may have been acclimatized to the high levels of awesome that spews from my fingers when I type, but if you're relatively new I suggest you sit down.


I've been working on hinges for the dome!


*swoon*


I recently picked up some spare Robart Hinges from a fellow builder - Simon.  These are designed for model air crafts, but I'm sure more have been sold to R2 builders.  Based on that, I personally vote that they change the design to a more R2 friendly shape!  Cause it's a lot of work to get these working correctly!

The above two pictures show the modifications needed to get these to fit.  The top picture probably shows this best

Having got one side of the hinge filed to a reasonable level, I put these in my newly procured (cheers Dad) vice.  Notice I've used the grommet supplied with these to line them up correctly. 

Well, after a long period of fiddling with the position and using a tacky glue that was easy to remove and re-position, I found the "sweet spot".  I quickly got a marker pen and marked where these needed to be glued.

I found that during the positioning process, getting a spot where the hing meets the inner dome was the best way to line it up.  With both sides of the hinge being filed down equally, I've got a nice straight hinge.  Also. the panel wont hit the outer dome so it won't leave marks.  This will be particularly handy when it comes to R2-OT's aluminium dome, as I don't want to scratch that!

I still need to remove these hinges once more so I can paint the inner sides of the panels.  I also need to add holes for the servo linkage rods to attached to on the hinge.  But theory proved :)

And of course, here's your obligatory video!

Well, I don't know if you all made it this far through the post, but I for one am feeling faint.  Once I've got the hinge fixed in place and it's opening smoothly with out any wobble, I think I'll need at least a stiff drink.