R2-D2 & R2-D9

back from my trip and back at it....

2008-02-08T07:55:00.001-08:00

The trip went well, for the most part but missed visiting an R2 builder. I'll have to catch chris next time. Anyway, most of my parts arrived when I got to Stanford. So even though I'm still a little jetlagged I desided to tackle my front logic displays today. The good news is that it works and is inexpensive while the bad news is that I'll need about 60 more ft of fiber optics. Fortunatly I'll be back in the US (east coast) next month. In case anyone is wondering it takes about 80 ft of fiber optics to make both front and rear logic displays on 2 complete artoos. These guys in the USA have the best prices www.fiberopticproducts.com. Once I figured out how I would approach this it took only an hour to make them. In the future I may go over to the J.E.D.I setup on 1 of these artoos but this present setup will keep me on schedule.

I'll have to tweek the timing somewhat but I'm pretty satisfied. More to come...

Waiting for the glue to dry...

2008-01-27T05:59:00.000-08:00

I finally got that glue I needed. I bought a few extra tubes, just in case. All I can do for now is wait for the glue to harden. I figured if I do the gluing now it should be totally hard by the time I get back from my little trip to Standford, CA. No real pictures to post this time but so far so good. While in the US, besides work, I'll be picking up a bunch of hard (hard to get in Sweden) to get goodies. The things that are waiting for me there are:

- 2 Vex transmitters/receivers
- 2 Vex signal splitters
- 4sets Vex crystals
- 2 Rocklers
- 2 Pittman motors for the dome rotation
- 20ft of 2.5mm optic fibers

I can only give a very big thanks To Calvin for helping me with the finding and ordering of most of these things. Because many of the companies in the US aren't adapted for international orders getting these things wasn't easy. But Calvin's contribution made it all very simple. A great thanks to Vin as well at R2builders for ordering the Vex transmitters. All of this kind of feels like Christmas all over again, lol.

Anyway, while I'm in the US I also plan to pick Chris's brain about his artoo. I'll be visiting him to get some close-up pictures of his artoo as well ;)

Plexiglass-man strikes again...

2008-01-20T22:09:00.000-08:00

The glue that I use for my frame and skin is on back order until friday. I guess everyone has a use for it, lol. Anyway, I thought I'd do some minor building this weekend because I have to soon prepare for my trip to the states. So I was testing 3 million and 1 ways to make that "hole" board for front and rear logic displays. I tried single-layered cardboard, double-layered cardboard, different types of wood but in the end... remember all of that plexiglass I have lying around...well. I desided to give it a try and wow. I printed out the hole setup on thick paper then using the paper as a template I carefully drilled the holes through both paper and plexiglass. Yepp, dremel has 101 uses as well. I think the results look pretty good. All I have to do is paint them. The r2builders club already has a styroman, so I guess you guys will be calling me "plexiglass-man", lol. Everyday, I discover lots of uses for this stuff in my artoo build. I'm even considering making my legs out of a wooden frame but with a plexiglass shell ;)

Great tempo until the glue ran out...

2008-01-14T14:32:00.000-08:00

So far so good! I added these progress pictures so you can see where I'm at. I hope they give you a feel for the process. Believe me, this IS fun!! The first artoo is skinned but the glue ran out on the second, so I have to wait a few days before I can finish "him". This little break gives me sometime to straighten up my little "droid workshop". It’s amazing, if one doesn’t pick up after each session, how things accumulate everywhere, lol. Anyway, as you can see the skin is made of a very strong yet flexible Plexiglas that’s 2 mm thick. I found it to be about the same weight as wood with the same thickness but extremely flexible. Another great thing with using plexiglas is that I just placed the drawing (blueprints) underneath and just trace. Once the skins have hardened onto the frame I just etch away the line details. Certain areas like the doors, vents and so forth will require that I cut away whole parts and then glue another plexiglas layer from the inside of the “body”. But that won’t happen until after I return from the USA business trip.

the skins are taking a while but...

2008-01-12T15:59:00.000-08:00

Yea, it takes a while to position these things on the frame but I'm having a great time. This is actually fun! Meanwhile I desided to begin preparation for cutting into the dome so I made a dremel cutting guide out of 2 metal handsaw blades mounted on a flexable plastic strip. I did a quick test and it will work like a charm. I'm also using a dremel diamond tip blade. Costs more than the ceramic blades but lasts a lot longer and no risk of dangerous broken projectiles ;)

working at a good pace...

2008-01-10T13:48:00.000-08:00

So for so good! The frames were complete enough to begin working on the skins. I'm gluing them on with "maxi bond". It's kind of like bondo, takes about 10-12 hours to completely harden but when it does the skins really sit there for good. Your next question is probably...what material is the skin made of. Well thats a little secret until I have all the skins mounted of both artoos'. A little hint is that its not metal nor wood, but very strong ;) This has and will take a few nights to complete so in between the "gluing sessions" I'm testing a radical lighting idea for the front and rear logic lights. I mentioned earlier about thinking out of the box, well this is really a different approach. Also a serect until I bench test. All I can say is that its looking both promissing and inexpensive.

No you're not seeing double...

2008-01-06T11:42:00.000-08:00

I had a pretty good tempo this weekend and finished the basic frame structures to both artoo. All in all about 8-10 working hours, from sawing, swearing, re-sawing, putting together, glueing, touching, swearing, re-putting together and re-glueing. I'll let the glue dry this time before I begin setting in the screws, lol. I'm pretty prowd of myself considering I had to make 8 identical rings and matching beams. And to top it all off that crate of band-aids was pretty much bored the entire weekend, lol.... I guess this offically marks the start of the body building process, yippy!

...more to come

yikes..the first big weekend....

2008-01-04T13:14:00.000-08:00

Well, I have 2 big weekends coming up for this project. The holiday relatives have finally left, the phone will be off the hook, kids are away, the final cutting tools are in place and a crate of band-aids are in the ready ;) This weekend I'm going to try and scatch build 2 artoo frames (wooden) at the same time, yikes. If all goes well, thats a big if, I can start on the dome the following weekend... I'll keep you guys posted but prayers are welcomed ;)

new dome electronics... new problems...

2008-01-03T05:06:00.000-08:00

With a new year comes new problems, lol. This christmas I got some new PSI flasher kits for my front and back logic displays so I decided to solder them up and watch the blinking lights, lol. Well, the lights came on, so I must have done something right, but no blinking. I re-check everything and added a little extra solder just to be sure, but nope. I then tried soldering a mini led flasher (2 LEDS) which is intended for my PSI display and it worked like a charm. I then went back to the non-working PSI flasher and checked and re-checked but nothing. Am I possibly connecting the battery to the wrong parts or is this just a bad PSI board? In the pictures the blue are positive and brown negative. Has anyone a suggetion?

no need for a 3rd PSI test...

2007-12-23T01:37:00.000-08:00

After talking with a few r2builders I decided to stick to the original colours. The PSI's should be red/blue in front and yellow/green in back. There's no point in making a great looking unofficial-artoo. Also I'm a pain when it comes to detail and it would just eat me up.

Now, like everyone else, its time for a little holiday break from artoo. But, it won't be a total break. I have a bunch of electric components, resin parts, hobby machinery and tools coming in santa's big red sack so there will be an unusual amount of drooling going on this holiday ;)

yea...they have these things in Hawaii as well ;)

the second PSI test...

2007-12-19T14:43:00.000-08:00

I decided to try and make a housing for the front/rear PSI to see how it would look. I used a bunch of old pill bottles, you know the small plastic ones. It just so happens that they have the correct diameter (40mm). I just drilled a small hole in the cap for the wires, glued the circuit board to the inside of the cap and finally glued thin black cardboard around the outside.I did this not because I wanted to same money, I just thought those resin parts that you can buy online looked so familiar. Well it was and it actually worked, lol. I plan to sand away the text from the bottom but the picture and video shows how it turned out :)

R2's front/rear PSIs'...

2007-12-18T14:34:00.001-08:00

While trying to get up the courage to begin marking and cutting the domes I decide to test those PSI lights for both artoo's. I found these PSI "wannabees" at a local novelty store for about 4 dollars each and thought they would work nicely. The lights are bright LEDs and each unit runs for hours on 3 AAA bateries. The colours aren't totally correct but hey, I thought they would look cool enough anyway.... I hope ;-)

DOMES!!!!!!

2007-12-11T11:02:00.000-08:00

Yes, finally they have arrived!!! Yippy, now I have something I can sink my teeth into. And the price was well within reason (by swedish standards) I'll have to do some very careful measurements in the coming days because there is no place here for mistakes. The place I got these domes is in Stockholm sweden and the preliminary measurements are too close to be true more to come... all I can say is that those guys at Svepo AB (plastics) did a great job!

2007-12-09T08:37:00.001-08:00

Well, while still waiting for the delivery of some "real" R2 parts I decided to tackle the side feet. I can only say WOW. I have done many things in my life, from spending 4 years in the USAF, moving to another country and learning to speak fluent swedish. But these feet were a challange. The basic shape wasn't to difficult, but man the curve for the feet where the battery box sits was a killer. I must have had to re-cut and re-shape that part about a dozen times. The drawings are nice and "correct" but for some reason it just didn't add up, lol. Any hoot it took me half of friday and all day saturday to get them right. Because silly me wanted to make 2 R2's at the same time you can imagine the time involved. I like the result so all thats left is sanding and filling, while the painting part will come much later. I may begin work on the battery box later on tonight. Anyway I hope the picture is entertaining...lol

Finally got those plans...

2007-12-01T13:43:00.000-08:00

Okay, after getting back from a short business trip in Berlin my newly printed plans were sitting at home waiting for me, Yippy! So this weekend I spent a lot of time in the local DIY stores getting all kinds of tools and materials that I didnt know I would ever need, pretty cool actually. So as soon as the domes arrive, in about a week or so, I can finally measure up the frame for cutting. I also placed and order for some resin-parts and dome electronics. Unfortunately Those wont arrive until the end of this month. I'm having my Sister over for christmas so no issues about duty taxes ;-) I guess its kind of a "hurry-up-and-wait" situation right now, but the wheels are in motion none the less :)

the first set back...

2007-11-22T09:36:00.000-08:00

I don't know how Brenda could see it but yepp my plans are off by about a 3rd of an inch. They are a 3rd of an inch too small, both vertically and horizontally. The Question is will anyone notice or do I have to invest in a reprint? Suggestions are much appreciated while my hairs turn grey, lol.

a penny saved is a...

2007-11-19T09:42:00.000-08:00

The first part of this ”little” endeavour has begun. My plans have arrived from the printers. Yippy!! Not until now did I realise the scale of it all, wow. When starting out on this project I thought I would cut corners on cost when possible but not on quality so I found a great way to get the plans printed inexpensively. I just went to the local printing shop an asked how do they calibrate there machines. They said they do test runs when they change the paper rolls so I asked when the next test run was. It just so happened that they were planning one later that week. So I asked if I could get a reduced rate if they tested the machine using my plans. They said sure and the plans arrive today. The price for it all was….. yepp free!! They charged me nothing because I didn’t need a colour print out and they were going to do the test run anyway. In all it's about 15 sheets of plans and cutouts. Not that I’m cheap but a penny saved is still a …. ;-)

a starting point...

2007-11-18T07:34:00.000-08:00

Okay, I guess every R2 build has to start somewhere and mine is no exception, the internet. Yea, the internet is where I found tons of information and lots of pointing in the right direction. Thanks Brenda, Calvin and Jason. The right direction in this case was the R2 Builders Club at yahoo. They have tons of info to get started. After weeding through there webpage’s I got a sense for which way to go. I must have read and analysed those plans and drawings about 30,000 times before I got up the nerve to start ordering for some parts. Scary ;-)

Because I live in Sweden and getting stuff shipped here from the USA would be a duty tax nightmare I decided to look around closer to home to find the critical parts like dome and drive system. I also discovered that I’m probably the only guy in Sweden to seriously ever consider building an R2 let alone 2 R2’s. Yea, you read it right 2 R2 units. I figured if I’m the only guy building these things in Sweden I just as well build 2. Just call it my little way to encourage others and who knows maybe even start a Stockholm builders club. When parts start arriving I’ll begin putting regular updates to my blog. I just wanted to mark this day as the official start date. I’ll leave the end date a little open until I get a feel for the pace this may take… I want to thank the 3500+ R2 builders out there for providing so much useful information and diagrams.