Thursday, March 17, 2011

Foot Drive Attachment

I mounted the JAG foot drive to the foot shell. I stripped all the main parts out of it. Then I marked where I'll need to cut a tiny hole for the NP motor.
I disassembled the JAG drive and then finished marking the hold I need to cut. In some photos I've seen holes that are quite large. I'm going to take out small sections at a time.
Then I drilled 4 holes at each corner so I could fit in a jigsaw blade and cut out the hole.
Now with the rough hole cut I remounted it. Thankfully it don't quite fit and I have to trim more. I marked the area where I need to trim. It seems like I'm quite close. I'd rather have this too small than too big.

I like my laser guided jigsaw but this curved area won't work with it anymore. Time to break out the dremel and the new easy lock cut off wheel and trim this off in no time.
Wow! I can't believe it. After 2 cut it fits! That almost never happens. Usually I screw something up. The real test will be to see if the NP motor fits.
The NP motor fits! I'm on a roll now. I'll file this hole into a nice clean square later when I work on the battery boxes.
A closeup. I'll need to file the bottom part some incase I need to do later tweeking to adjust the motor into proper position and the make sure the drive belt is tight.
Here is a look at the other side. I don't know how many months I dreamed of getting this far in my build. I'm almost there to the point I can get R5 to drive!

This entire process took 90 minutes. 1 done and 1 to go. On Friday I'll do the other foot and have both feet ready for the first test.
Then I got to work on my back door, which of course never ends. Today I mounted the super 1.5 inch magnet on the back Power Coupler. I don't dare put the same size magnet on the droid frame. It would rip off that Power Coupler if I did that wrong.

The other side this attaches too I decided to use two .750 rare Earth magnets. But later learned 1 magnet is pushing the main magnet away and I need to order another set of these. Thus, this project won't end any time soon. Someday my grandkids will take over this blog and update with their progress.
I also did some painting. I took the new bars that arrived the other day and masked then, primed and painted them black.
Then they got 2 coats of copper on them. After 2 days of cooking in the hot AZ sun they'll be ready to touch and install without fear of leaving finger prints on them.

If everything goes right on track sometime around Sunday I might be seeing R5s first steps. If this droid don't fall apart he'll be driving around the next Phoenix Comicon.

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