Awesome Boosters

A bit more progress will be made of the coming days as I've just received a nice upgrade that has been 2 years in the making!!!!

R2 now has his boosters which are made up of 70 aluminium components....



Booster closed


Booster open




how good do they look ?!!?!?
Now to get on with the painting

Armageddon 2010

R2 took a trip to Armageddon this weekend held at the showgrounds in Adelaide

Geeks paradise and R2 was loved by everyone

We were invited by the Rebel Legion and 501st and their stand was pretty spectacular with a life size star wars figure toy box and backing card - unfortunately R2 couldn't fit!

here are some of the real life figures



R2 getting the attention from the ladies again...



a few famous people were there including Bishop from Alien

R2 at the Adelaide Comics Centre

Even though R2 is not complete I was invited by the Rebel Legion to take him down to the Adelaide Comics Centre in Rundle Mall to raise money for the Cancer Council

It was good to get an idea of how it runs and what falls off - just had an issue with the motor shaft and cog sliping on the right foot and some issues with the jedi control electrics but overall a successful day

more foot progress

Good progress over the weekend working on the battery boxes and getting them to fit over the NPC motors
I had filed the motors down a little but realised they need more filing off them to make them fit correctly inside the battery boxes
A quick trip to Bunnings and 1 hour later I have angle grinded the motors down





Still a bit of a struggle to get everything lined up



but eventually the motors/foot shells and battery boxes all fit

Finally I used silicone to glue the details onto the battery boxes



Just need to spray the braided battery hosings that I also got at Bunnings - fast becoming my favourite aussie store!!!

First steps

As most R2 to builders are aware this is always a special moment - the first time R2 takes his first steps.
This is the first test of the drive system of my new r2



I'm not too happy with the centre foot and the two 2.5" casters and I think I'll need to put ankle locks on all 3 feet and still need to sort the clearance of the casters or look into getting some different ones

Hopefully in the next couple of weeks I'll be able to sort those issues out and then route the power up into the dome for the lights

R2 on his back - sorting the drive train


Started to tidy the electrics panel - needs a bit more work but its getting there

Power to the dome

Today I spent an hour soldering the DB25 connectors onto a slip ring I bought from ebay
Scot Gray has made a board that plugs on each end

The slip ring means that power can be provided up in to the dome and the dome can spin all the way round without snagging any cabling

Outer feet, pocket vents and thinkgeek sound

Lots of progress made over the Anzac weekend
First up was prepping and painting the JAG outer feet before attaching them to the legs and threading the power cables through





Secondly I painted and attached one of the pocketed vents into the front skins



and finally I finished the thinkgeek t-shirt modification (thanks to Andy Schwarz for the idea) to attach it to a 12ch remote. At the moment I've not bothered adding in an amp as I think it should be loud enough but I'll wait and see

The thinkgeek t-shirt came with a sound board and a wired remote. The wired remote was cut off and connected to a wireless 12 channel remote which I got from ebay

12ch wireless remote