Electronics Update - Voltage Feedback

Now that my R5 is done its time to go back and optimize things that I've figured how to make the droid more efficient, such as my voltage meter. The way I have it configured now its hooked up to Dan's power distribution board. So when I turn the droid on the voltage is also turned on. After having the droid for a while its clear there is no need to have this running all the time when the droid is turned on. Ya, its looks cool when the back door is off, but it eats electricity so I'll try to save some of that. I decided to hook that voltage meter directly to the battery. 

I'll need to install a on/off switch so its only on when I want it to be. To install the switch I'll have to find some very limited room and becareful not to wreck any finished paints, or drill through any electronics.

So I very carefully drilled a series of small holes in the area where I'm going to install the switch. Then I slowly filed the area down a little bit at a time until the switch fits in tightly.

Here it is all wired up. These are pretty easy to wire up, even for a notice like me.

The new switch is installed and everything powered off.

Now in the on position. This should save me a little bit of battery power by not having it hooked up all the time. Plus its actually reading directly from the battery getting the real battery condition, not a regulated voltage.

R5-D4 Finished!

Yesterday I finished R5-D4 at Tom's house. Basic construction of this droid is done and he's ready to go out and interact with people.

There are a few tweaks on parts or gaps here and there. Then later I have loads of work getting the servos for the doors and pie panels to work.

Scott, the maker of JEDI control helped Tom and I tweek some issue with the droid driving in a circle. It turned out the 'center' of the VEX wasn't sending out the code the JEDI expected. So the fix to get the droid to sit still was to just update the startup.txt with the center the VEX was reading out 1520 was adjusted to 1480 that VEX was reading off the transmitter feedback. That fixed it!

Every now and then I notice the droid 'jumps' forward or backward about 5 inches. Or some random sound is triggered. Sometimes my custom jukebox starts playing like the droid is possessed and alive and acts by itself. One time I cussed it out and the R5 responded back with some chirp. I don't know how that bug happened but it was freaking funny. My theory is lose of signal from the VEX? Because I don't always have my antenna sticking out very far when doing tests. When it does that it seems more like the droid is 'alive'. Its cool and kinda of scary if a 200 pound droid starts deciding where and when it drives around.

One day I hope to 2-3-2 this droid, but until then lots of fun ahead.

I also did some work on R2-Q5. Now my next goal is to finish the black dome on R2-Q5. The dome on him now is my tinted dome. I don't think I'm going to do much with this dome until 2012.

I recently fixed some of the skin gaps, counter sunk some holes on the skin and then repainted the skins. I also painted my aluminum utility arms copper. Some where in there is my frankstein leg I fixed that was cracked. I think it weights around 50-60 pounds without batteries. This droid won't have any servos. Just drive around, make some sounds,  dome rotation with lights.

This is the back of R2-Q5. No back door at all. Its a pain in the ass to relive again. Its nice to have a back door when you really need one and its all over with. No fun for me anyway doing that section of droid building.

 The odd couple. Sometime this year I need to do some serious work on my R2-D2 dome. I'm waiting for a few part runs so I have some HPs and a radar eye to begin working on the dome.

This is pretty much what I'll be bringing to the 2011 Phoenix Comicon. Next year both droids will be drive and R5 should have many servos in it by then.

Also I want to thank David for swapping out frequencies with me on the VEX transmitter. I'm on a 65 now instead of 89 in the R5-D4 droid. What that means is my droid is not on the default channel that you get from VEX transmitters on ebay

R2-AZ Dome Arrives

Today I got my tinted dome in the mail I'm experimenting for a droid I call R2-AZ. Its an 18 inch dome that's a couple of inches shorter than a 300 MM dome.

So its time for a test fit.

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I have 3 blacklights inside it so I can later paint or light up some of them for the 'brains' or PSI lights.

Most people who do a clear dome have the clear part where you see the white above. The opposite way which I have seen yet is above. Where your panels are clear so you can see inside but the main dome area is painted some color. Hmm. I never thought of this method before. If I had another outer styrene dome I could cut the inner tinted dome in half and make the height perfect.

My black droid will have several different domes that I can swap out to make the droid change day to day.

So far I like what I see. I like the idea of transparent panels since it seems nobody's done it yet.The entire time I wanted to do the white section as transparent and paint the panels some color that the blacklight enhances. But this seems pretty cool now that I look at it.

 I would probably paint this white section black. But before I did, I'd photoshop it black to get an idea of what that would look like before I do it.

 

 I might need to wait until the next styrene run to finish this dome but its looking cool from the get go.

Droid Transport System

I finally got my droid transport system figured out. Last week I put the droid on the truck I bought but wasn't able to lift him into the pickup. Its like trying to load a washer/dryer by yourself. Back breaking work to say the least. So I bought this ramp and as you can see I have the 100 pd droid loaded into the truck. Now I can take him to events!

Its about the size of a washer/dryer and just as heavy. From this point I need to center the droid, and then use a bunch of straps to keep him from flipping over during transportation. I'll also throw some moving blankets over him cause sometimes you get hit with rocks on the freeway. I need some practice loading and unloading the droid and driving him around. I don't want my first experience to be the morning of PCC and learning things at the last minute.

AL CPU Arm = Awesomeness!

I wish I could say I made this part. Its so beautiful. I don't have the know how or the shop to make something so complex like this. All aluminum and made by James V. I think he made a few of these over the past 5 months or longer and I'm a proud owner of it this one pictured above. I didn't plan on having this for Phoenix Comicon so I'll try to figure out how to install this and the gripper into a static position.

The detail level is spectacular! Its just like the David Shaw CPU arm but lighter I'm told. I have a very detailed photo of this as my wallpaper. I'll try to paint this exactly like you see in a New Hope.

Here is a test fit.Its supposed to mounted at the top most believe but I don't have time to do that in 3 weeks. So I might be able to install the CPU arm and the gripper into the bottom breadpans and open the doors to show them. This freaking droid is getting cooler and cooler everyday. I still can't believe I own this robot, let alone spent nearly everyday for the past year assembling it, making parts, studying astromechs and making new friends. Its been a crazy expensive ride that I'll never regret.

None of these photos do this robot justice it appears much, much smaller in the photos than in real life. When you personally seen a droid for the first time. You stop and go Woah! That thing is huge! I'm not driving the droid everyday practicing steering and control.

I'm also working a lot on my skins. I'm JB welding the gap and closing that down to nothing. I'm also repainting the back door again and fixing some screw ups. So its down to just painting a few parts here and there to get the droid ready for the event next month. That will be this droids major public showing. 

The inner and outer rear skins and now glued back together. I sanded down all the paint and excess superglue and will JB weld on the rear panels next.

I'm also back to working on R2-Q5 now that R5 is winding down. I have most of 1 leg assembled and painted. Not pictured is the body which I'm JB welding the skin gaps over the next few days and getting that ready for these legs to attach to.

Leveling the Droid

Doing more test today I decided to see how level my droid is. Oh my the back ball casters aren't even touching the floor. They probably do on carpet but not on tile. The photo don't show it very well but its about 1/4 of an inch off the ground. The other side is about 1/8 of an inch off the ground. So basically the droid is driving on the 2 large wheels in the feet and 1 of the casters in the center foot.

So the more I suck up the center foot into the droid to level it out the more it tilts the rear feet off balance. So I have a dilemma and I'm not sure what to do. For now I'm going to do nothing. I have a Comicon coming up in 30 days and I'm going to start ripping the droid apart over a 1/4 of an inch on 1 foot that only I'll maybe notice.

These feet will eventually be painted black and put on R2-Q5 so I'll mess with it more then.

R5 is basically done!

What the title says. R5-D4 is basically done. I have a few things left to do. Like repaint the rear skins and fix the skin gaps before I do.

Now I have the motors installed, battery boxes all fixed up and he drives just fine over tile to carpet and I'm quite happy with the progress.

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I had some issues with the center foot sticking out too far. So I added a bunch of washers and longer bolts. Still its not evenly distributed on both wheels but pretty close. I'll try to mess with that more down the road.