Brad's electronics 101 class.

Last night fellow builder Brad was nice enough to host a basic electronics and soldering class.
He was even nice enough to supply everyone with parts to build a basic 2 LED 555 flasher that we got to take home with us. Thanks Brad! Also Brad's wife made us some wonderful chocolate cake!

Here we are all hard at work soldering our 555s up :)
My soldering still needs some work but I got mine working just fine. Gee maybe I should frame it LOL. Here is mine all done and light up.
After a long but fun night we took a group photo as usual. Even Dash is all smiles :)

Gearing up for a lot of Soldering

I knew most stuff about basic electronics already but tomorrow night I am going over to fellow builder Brad's house to get the last of my 'HOW TO" electronics questions answered. After that I should be about ready to do some of R2-CM's finer plumbing myself. LOL
The Vantec and the upper PICAXE with the white chip is for all of Patches gizmos and the lower PIC will be for Scrubs Morse Code Lights.

I bought myself some brains!

People say I tend to over think everything but I bought mesa some more brains anyway.
I bought this brain on Ebay for $17 including shipping.
It is a life sized replica made out of dense foam that I will glue permanently together after weighting the bottom.
It should be here next week.

I also took the time to glue some of the joints together that I knew were right on the money.
Every joint piece has raised writing on them so I am taking the time to cut them off.
A little light sanding and all will be good.

T3-M4 Project

The last project I am starting for 2009 is T2-M4. He will probably be moving around by the end of the year but not finished as I want to get my many other projects finished as well. He will be full scale and do most everything the one in the game does except shoot people LOL. If I was going to make a static version it would probably be mostly styrene but I think I will makethe main part of the body out of something a little more beefyer than that LOL.

B'omarr Monk

I started some rough set up of a full size B'omarr with Jen who is afraid of spiders LOL.
Remember this is a rough set up and not the finished legs.

It was a hot 16 degrees today when I took all the 1 1/4 inch pipe outside to rough cut.
No it was not snowing, that is just PVC dust.
I slipped the parts loosely together using mostly 45 degree elbows for the upper part of the legs.
When I finally put the legs all the way together I think it will be about this high at 4 foot.
After studying some pictures on wookie-pedia some more I think the length of the center body is to long, I will have to shorten it up a few inches and offset the V shape in the legs.
Jen and Denny really does not like this spider project LOL.

New Banner

If you cant figure my new projects out now I can't help you LOL.
Here is a rough new Banner I am working on

New Droid Project

Most of my current projects are waiting on paint, gluing, or something that is to dusty to do inside due to the cold and snow so I am starting yet another project.
The only hint I am giving for now is "Italian Olive".

HEART OF AN EMPIRE movie night

One of our members Denny hosted a viewing of the new documentary at my house for all our friends. He even made a cake for the event.We did not take many pictures of the party because the movie moves you so bad. You will know what I mean when you see it.

To lighten the mood as guests arived we played The Force Unleashed and watched C3 afterward.
Here is a Candid vid Denny took of my turn playing the game. It gets funny a minute into it. LOL

Before Movie
After Movie

AND YE SHALL BE CALLED ED!

While cleaning up for tomorrows movie night I stacked all of R4-MM's parts together.
Poor thing looks so......... special, so his nickname shall be "ED" from now on.

Solding the right way

After watching a few youtube vids and asking fellow builder Brad a few questions I went from making joints like the ones up front on the right to making smaller stronger joints like the ones on the left.
Tinning the tip really does make a difference LOL.

A little more practice and I should have them looking nicer :P

Scrub's greeblies

I cut some styrene pieces and made some other items for the inside of the back piece of the droid.

Scrubbing a little

Had a little time tonight to work on Scrubs so I took the time to scrape all the seam lines, words, and logos off the now top of the droid. Once it gets warm out I will bondo or evercoat them smooth.

I also drilled and mounted one of the parts boxes my friend Denny gave me.
I also temporarily mounted an LED light that I liked on the front of the droid...
When I put the plastic bubble over the top of it, it defuses nicely :)

New Tools

Another Tim Allen Moment with Moose....
ARRRRHHH ARRRHHH ARRRRHHHH!!!!

OK I'm Better.
My trusty cordless drill batteries finally gave out after 10 years of use so yesterday I went and got my very first Lithium powered drill. It is only a 16v compared to my old 19.2v but with the new batteries lasting till they completely drain makes up for it. I cant wait to make it wander home from work and use it on a droid. HEHEHE.

I am also learning how to make electronic circuits from scratch and soldering them. Defiantly not the same as wiring up a house or a 67 El-Camino! Doing copper plumbing is way easier to solder as well! :P Any who I went out and got some helping hands for my soldering work, regular clamps were not cutting it.

Light night

Only had a half hour tonight to play with droids but I got a little done. I got the hoses mounted temporarily along with my left over R2 aluminum door skin extras along the sides.
I still have to dremel off the words underneath so they sit more flush.

Getting Scrubs hosed

This is how I attach hoses to my projects....

First I cut all the hose pieces to length making sure I left the big lip on the ends.
Then I stuffed the ends with plastic bags about an inch down and poured resin almost to the top.
The resin forms to the ridges of the hose and makes a tight seal. I then drill a pilot hole and thread some screws in.
With the small amount of space left empty at the top the hoses will compress a bit and form a seal around almost anything to make it look like it goes threw the item.

Hence the resin is only in the tips and you can bend the hoses in any direction.

Details, details

Late the other night I started to mount some of the detail pieces temporarily on Scrubs.
I might put more on later this week.

Dash's Bib Fortuna Costume

This is not R2 related but worth a post.
My friend Dash is making a Bib Fortuna costume and needed some help with some welding and Rebar bending to make a skeleton for his clay build up of the head tails. He will then make molds of them after he is done sculpting and cast them out of foam rubber.
You can view his progress on his Blog at http://bibfortuna.blogspot.com/

We will bend the rebar after he has his head cast here.

Slip Rings are in

Our group's 6 slip rings came in! Thanks to Ross for doing this run and all the leg work to make it happen. Two of the slip rings are mine :)
I moved the Velcro that was holding the battery to this plate out of the way and checked the fit of the ring.
It fits great but will only work in this configuration if I mount it upside down. I need to check first to see if this is possible without damaging the ring. If not I will have to make a stationary holder for it below this one.

Slideshow of OsFest July 2008

Another quick video I made for OsFest.

Under Leg Details

Tonight the R2-Central builders finished up the leg details.
First Brad and I cut the internal leg holders.
Jayson, Clay, Brad, Jen, Denny and me worked on the last detail before glue up. The under arm detail.
We then double checked our measurements against my droid and went to town.
We first marked out where we wanted to cut with a template.
Clay cut out the center part of the detail on Dash's band saw.
Tam and Reaper worked on some chain mail for Tam's Link costume while we worked on the legs.
Once we had the router set up it was time to do the outer pieces.


Jayson and Brad worked on the chiseling out the corners while the rest of us finished up the routing.
Next we all built a jig for gluing up the legs
The R2-Central Crew minus Dash and Talon who could not make it.

Front row left to right: Reaper, ClayBo, Tam.
Back row left to right: Moose, Jen, Falcon-One, Kitt, Little City.
(Yes we all have such wonderful names LOL)
We took a pizza break half way threw the build, Jayson brought his dome in to compare his lines to my 300 dome. Spot on work I must say :)
While we were eating pizza and warming back up we watched R2LA 2008 and talked Droid.
On the next build day we will be gluing up the legs. YAAAAA!