Dome Work

I've been doing a lot of work on the tinted dome now that I have all the parts I need for it and electronics soldered together.

Lets begin with cutting the front logics display into an acrylic tinted dome. I used my laser cut styrene dome to help me trace were all the panels go. After I painted the black panels on the inside of the dome. I marked where to cut in the logics, PSI and HP next.

Here I drill a series of holes and slowly remove material and then file it away very slowly until I reach the size hole I want to make.

Now I have both front logics cut in. They'll hide behind the paint somewhat. Next I'll need to drill holes in them, paint them and mount to the Teeces Logic display. I was worried that small black bar between the logics in the dome would break. So far its holding up nicely.

Again sitting by the pool either soldering parts, painting or cutting up something in Arizona. I'm typically shirtless in our awesome weather working on droids. Here I'm marking where I'm about to cut open the rear logic display by using blue tape that I copied after I put a laser cut styrene outer dome shell over this one.

I drill several dozen small holes into the area I want to cut out. I slowly bust this out with a 4-40 threaded rod to finish the same holes and connect them.

Later I file it until the logics fit in.

Now I drill out the PSI hole with a drill by a series of small holes.

Then I used a round file to remove more material until I got close to the circle I made with a silver marker. I put blue tape over the dome to protect it in case I get carried away and accidentally hit the dome with a file or drill during construction. I highly recommend doing this if you choose to follow this route. Protect your investment in product and painstaking time not to damage as you build. 

You're not going to make a perfect circle with a file and a line. To get a better circle the old method is using a wine bottle with sandpaper on it. So I used 80 grit sandpaper on it and pulled it to tweek the fit for the Holoprojectors to fit actually how I wanted them too

For my dome bumps I bought 2 carriage bolts for 60 cents each. I cut the head off, painted it black and will glue them in for installation. 

Now I'm cutting out the top HP in the dome. I put some blue tape around incase my drill slips. After I drill out the hole. I had some left over 4-40 threaded rod. I use that as a round file to connect the holes and remove this piece of material.

Now all of the holes in the dome are cut out for the front side.

This is the backside with all holes cut preinstallation of the Teeces logics and other parts.

Tempe SciTech Festival

I never heard about this before but it seems like fun and something cool to do for free starting around 5 PM at Mill and University Avenue. We had 2 full sized RC droids and another droid showing it in the process of construction.

R5-D4 showing his best angle.

You'll always see people with great costumes and others with whatever they could afford. Things like this are amazing at the local level of craftsmanship you see every 15 minutes. People come and go and you always have a smile saying "look that is so cool". I see a homemade Cylon costume that wasn't perfect but still it was cool. Wish I had a photo of it.

After a while this felt like Pre Comic con 3 but out doors and free!

By the time Phoenix Comic con hits here its either 90 or 105 so its a gamble on the weather. Tonight was 'cold for Phoenix', perfect night for something like this.

This pair of Predators were pretty awesome! The one on the left had around a dozen LED lights on each  piece of armor. A serious effect on detail went into that as a droid builder that I respect. This might not be 'hero' quality for a movie close up. But its pretty damn good that could be used for a team member Predator in a group shot. Kudos for whomever is the maker as its very well done.

Note:R5 is watching from a distance, ready to scram if he needs to in his own slow way.

The Walking Dead.

I took R5 for a trip around the place to troll outsides who didn't happen to walk past the droid area we camped in. I ran across this zombie women who had been bitted and was infected with rage or being dead or something.

Know I know that your average female can spend atleast 1 hour in the bathroom a day putting on makeup. How long did she take to put this blood all over here? 5 hours or 5 minutes. That's the question.

 

Lashing out at the crowd members For once the family friend event stopped. This zombie girl as I came across here was laying on the cement as me and R5-D4 drove by entertaining kids no less. She lashed out at us so we got the F out of there as fast as we could at R5's slow speed. When I reached a relative safety zone for R5, I stated taking photos of the zombie girl who just tried to kill him. 

A few events back somebody tried to kill R5 buy pouring too much beer down this throat and drown him in beer electronically. This time was a random zombie attack and its not R5's first encounter with a zombie. R5 is not worried because he's not alive and if taken apart a master like myself can just reassemble him in the future, thus he know he can't be killed and ain't afraid of no zombie who can die again.

 This is the final shot of 'it' before 'it' was finally put down by the AZ Ghostbusters. They saved the day yet again!

This is only 4 of the local AZ R2-D2 builders clubs with the builders and there droids. We grow in size each year except last year when we lost 2 long time members. So we gained 1 and should level off by Comic Con.