I thought I had posted some pics previously but turns out I had not. So R2's almost done. Just a few more parts to go. He is fully mobile and talks. Last night I started the arduous process of soldering the LEDs for his dome onto the circuit boards...definitely not fun. R2 has officially entered the other side of the Paretto Chart and the last 10% is taking me the most time. Anyways here are some photos:
That is awesome, Wally! I've talked some with one of our resident R2 specialists, Gary, and have at least a basic understanding of how much time and trouble building an astromech can be and know I'll never have the time and patience to build one of my own. Your droid looks fantastic so far - maybe we'll see him serving drinks on the next 501st cruise.
Peace is a lie; there is only passion.
Through passion, I gain strength.
Through strength, I gain power.
Through power, I gain victory.
Through victory, my chains are broken.
The Force shall set me free.
Front Logics done...I set it up with a second 12V battery just sitting on the top ring to get the pictures. I'm thinking on doing a board that attaches to the rockler with a smaller 12v battery attached to it so it doesn't impede the dome rotation.
Last night I got down to the nitty gritty of putting power in the dome. I know I wanted to do some sort of board to mount the battery but then I was lost as to how to do power distribution...well a trip to Auto Zone solved that:
This little baby was $24. It distributes 12v to 4 channels and uses a pressure switch to turn them on and off. Here are some pics:
Here is a pic of the whole board mounted to the Rockler:
And finally a movie of R2 moving about with the new setup. The cool thing for me is I can now run a microprocessor in the dome without worrying about how to power it.
Awesome Wally! I'm completely jealous, as my R2 has been stalled out for months now.
Did you scratch build, or buy the frame and legs? I looks to me like it might be and A&A setup? How about the dome? 300mm? And the detail parts, resin? What about the drive system? What kind of motors and controllers?
Man, I'm gonna have to invite you over to help me jump start mine again.
mrivorey wrote:Awesome Wally! I'm completely jealous, as my R2 has been stalled out for months now.
Did you scratch build, or buy the frame and legs? I looks to me like it might be and A&A setup? How about the dome? 300mm? And the detail parts, resin? What about the drive system? What kind of motors and controllers?
Man, I'm gonna have to invite you over to help me jump start mine again.
Sorry for the delayed response been busy and sick and busy. The body is A&A entirely. Some of the construction is not exactly by the book but rather I tweaked it some to meet my needs. The Dome is one of the laser cut styrene C&D domes. The motors are the standard 135W scooter type and the dome motor is one of the Pitman's. The detail parts are Resin from Dark Jedi...though the booster covers will be scratch built by me (I'm in the process of doing that). The controller system is the Vex 75Hz. I originally wanted to get a Futaba 2.4GHz 10 channel set-up but found a better deal when the hobby took another victim and someone dropped out. The Vex is great and I can actually upgrade it to a new Wifi set up they offer. I will probably do that much later this year. I'm using 2 motor controllers Sabertooth type and they work great since they do the mix for the motor so it allows me to run on a single stick. I'd be more than happy to help you get jump started...Let me know.
was that too much
