Dome is pretty much finished

After some careful work reshaping the Radar Eye to fit this dome the project is almost done.

Right now I'm going two steps forward and one step back. As expected the parts I JB welded on  to the paint aren't holding. So its time for a backup plan. My fix to hold these parts in position is I'm going to make a 1/4 inch thick acrylic ring that fits inside the dome. I'll notch out holes for the Holoprojecters, PSI holders and logics. The ring will also be used to center the dome on the body. My wife calls it my never ending project and it sure feels like this is never gonna end. I think its really looking cooler with each upgrade. Some of the dome is getting yucked up with small scratches, smears from where and tear. Its been a fun experiment however.

I have also started to work on the all black styrene dome that will also go on this droid. That project isn't going to last 1 year and should be done in a few weeks. I'll progress photos of that coming soon. When both domes are finished then its time to install the radio control electronics and install the feet.

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.

Holoprojector Porn!

Despite the lack of updates on here lately. I'm still working on droids, slow but sure. Here is a progress update. I have been collecting parts for to finish the domes.

Here is my current  inventory. The 6 HPs on the left were on Bob C's recent aluminum run. The aluminum HP next to that is one of the first HPs made in aluminum. Then I have 3 clear HPs made by Cal, very nice parts there. On the right the darker HPs are made by Don Jar, pretty brittle material so be very careful handling them.

I recently got these HPs and radar eye in clear resin from Cal. I can't say enough about how awesome these parts are! They are pretty solid. I think if one dropped one from 4 feet to the ground it won't suffer too much damage. Not that I plan on that but they are very well made IMO.

Here is each HP part side by side for comparison.

The old school HP is a little higher then the parts currently being run on and off.

I was surprised the end caps were interchangeable on these parts made by different people. They don't screw in all the way unless you use some grease and force but its pretty dang close.

Tucson Comic Con 2011

David and I went do to the Tucson Comic Con and brought a couple of droids with us.

Tom and Tom jr. in costumes and R5-D4 with the first ever built Clone Wars droid built by David.

We also have some DSG people and are well represented with the 501st, Rebel Legion, Mandos, droids and what not. Its also a pretty good time out spreading around the fun. I wanted to see if my droid would break down again as it always seems to do. This time the dome didn't break. But I had tons of problems with the RF again. The droid would need to be rebooted over and over. Either the sound quits working, or the JEDI control freezes up. Either way it needed constant rebooting and I need to stand close or it moves on it's own. 

I'm done doing events until I get this transmitter stuff fixed.

If you look closely in this photo there is a misty shooting out of the R2 droid. It always surprises kids when the fire extinquisher is activated.

I hurt my back unloading the droid from the truck so I'll be taking it easy for a while. I need a van instead of a truck to haul this guy around.

Worked on my antenna today

Today I tried to extend the range of the Vex antenna. Its really short like 12 inches long and means when I use the Vex transmitter I have to be atleast 12 feet away. Here is how I had it wired up.

The vex is the yellow box with the short antenna I had wrapped around the frame.

So next I soldered on about 3 foot of 22 gauge wire onto the Vex antenna. Then I put that antenna into a clear tube and zip tied it around in the circle as high up as possible in the droid. Doing a before and after test I gained about 5-12 extra feet of distance. But to safely operate him I still need to be around 15-20 feet away from the droid. Oh well I gained 5 something feet. I'll take it until I can replace this Vex system later on.

Painting My Tinted Dome

I finally got around to painting my tinted dome. I got burnt out on part building for a while and now getting back in action. Here's how I got this done. I believe this entire droid is about 9 months old and most of it is aluminum. I just love a black R2. I noticed at the last Con about 1 in 10 people liked this over the other droids. I'd hear things like "Wow! a black R2". You don't see this kind of droid often and its pretty rare.

Now that my HPs are here its time to get to work on all of my domes. I need to trace the panels from the styrene dome onto the tinted dome so I know exactly where the panels are.

First I put the styrene dome over the tinted dome so I know where to put the masking tape. I'm going to paint the inside of the dome so its easy to wipe off the dome. This is quite time consuming as I used blue tape and pin strippng tape from an automotive shop.

I'm doing this in sections so I taped the inside and decided to paint the pie panels in the next stage.

All of the sections not masked are going to be painted black. I used no primer just straight black paint, with 3 light layers. I forgot to use magnets to some areas to hold it very tight to the dome.

This black trash can is turned out pretty cool! I need to get her a skirt soon. There are a few areas of the paint in the dome that needs to be removed, overspray. I don't know if that's possible using a paint thinner might wreck it. I'm going to wait for the paint to cure another week until I do some tests to improve it.

After I touch up the paint I have the PSI and logics to install. I also have a clear radar eye to replace this eye and clear Holoprojectors coming in the near future. Then I have the electronic brains to ponder over how to do that. I also need to install the JEDI control system and get this droid running around.