PSIs are Installed!

Took a little bit of modification, but I was able to get the Front PSI installed.

The opaque screens have all cured up since I installed them, so now I am ready to go forward with installing the actual PSIs.

Turns out there was a bit of a fit up problem with the Front PSI because the holoprojector mount is so large that it encroaches over a bit in the the PSI's mount area. Just needed to take a bit of the mount flange off to make it fit, no big deal.

Earlier in the week, I had hooked up the PSIs and turned them on again so I could get a look at how the lights would be seen from the outside. Turns out the cutting sheet alone isn't quite enough to properly diffuse the bright LEDs on the PSI board, so I had to make another diffuser screen.

So, if you pay even MORE attention to the movies, you'll notice the the PSI on R2-D2 actually has a hexagonal type screen of some sort behind the opaque screen. So I whipped up a quick hexagonal pattern model and had it 3d printed.

I had made the patter a square (just because that was simplest) so I had to trim it to fit in the mount. I underestimated this one quite a bit and it took me about an hour to get it to fit just right. Once in I sealed it with some epoxy to keep it in place.

Dabbed some epoxy on the flanges and squished it right in place on the dome. Spent about 30 minutes applying pressure and making sure that it lined up just perfectly so that it was clearly seen from the outside.

All in all, I'm really happy with the way it turned out. Also did the same for the rear PSI, just glued it in place. 

So now I'm just waiting for more servos to come in for the other 2 holoprojectors, and once I get those installed I'll be done with the dome for now, until I'm ready to install it on the body frame. Looong way to go.

Next up I will be starting working on the leg assemblies! And also in the meantime figure out how i am going to get the 2 remaining holoprojectors up and running.

2 Domes become 1!

I've taken the step and passed the point of no return... I've mated the Inner and Outer Domes together!

Yep, that's right. With the holoprojectors and mounts ready to be final installed, that means I've come to the point where it's time to mate the two domes together.

I had a bit a trouble with getting the Outer Dome to fit on top with all the holoprojectors installed, but figure it out when I realized I need to uninstall the front and rear ones, then install them after the domes have been mated together

I decided to just glue the Radar Eye to the dome because I couldn't get the screws to thread into the plastic mount like I was hoping. Instead of struggle with it until I was going to break something, decided to just take the easy way out. Also noticed the PSI mounts, they pop out nice!

After everything is fit up nice and snug, I moved on to mounting the LED light boards into the mounts I had previously installed. The dome is definitely starting to populate now.

All the light boards already have mounting holes on them, so all I had to do was screw them into the mounts installed on the dome. Pretty simple, just drilled a few holes and screwed in a few fasteners. Once I have everything final installed I'll be cleaning up the wiring a bit.

Now with that out of the way, I moved on to the PSIs. Currently there are just open holes in the dome for the front and rear PSI ports/ If you pay close attention, you'll notice in the movies that they are actually opaque and have a milky transparency sheet covering the opening.

So I did some research and didn't find much. I decided to head to the local Target and try to get some inspiration. I walked the ENTIRE store, looking in the office section and arts and crafts section for a semi-transparent sheet that I could use. Nothing.

...Until I made my final stop at the culinary section. Right away I spotted some cheap cutting sheets, and found exactly what I was looking for!

The blue part is a 3d printed mount I created to attache the PVC light board holders for the PSIs to the dome. So I traced out the size of the mounts on to the cutting sheets and went to work with the scissors. Got my 2 cutouts that I needed and proceed to get them glued up to the dome.

These should be perfect for when I install the PSI lights, as they will now be a bit more blurry when seen from the outside, instead of the individual LEDs. It should turn out pretty nicely.

LOOK INTO MY EYE!!!

Next week I will be installing the PSI mounts to the dome and getting the lighting effects all wrapped up.

Dome Integration has Begun!

I've now gathered pretty much all the parts I need to start with integrating the lights and movement effects into the dome.

One of the members on the Astromech forum has created a really clever mount system for controlling the holoprojectors inside the dome. Today I installed these mounts, plus some of the mounts for the lighting effects as well.

Not only do these kits come with the mounting frames, but also all the required hardware to fasten everything up. Once again, the builder's community has delivered!/

Assembling the mounts is pretty simple, I just had to locate and drill the 4 mounting holes for each mount on the inner dome. I started with the front holoprojector first.

It's a 2-piece clamp on the bottom of the holoprojector that then ties into the actuating plate where the servo is mounted. On the pic below you can see it fully installed with both servos installed/

Of course, instead of continuing one with the rest of the build, I HAD to try them out, so I hooked up the servos and gave it a shot. The Arduino program sketch that is already installed for the lighting effects also has the automated movement control of the front holoprojector written into it, so I went ahead and tried it out.

I got some movement, so that's good enough for now! My plan for the future is to have all 3 holoprojector moving randomly. I will need to look into this a bit more, but I think I've already found an Arduino sketch to make that happen. Will just have to figure out to hook everything up together.'

Also mounted up the other lighting mounts, and painted the inner dome it's final color of black. 

Things are starting to come together on the dome. Just need to install the lighting effects and get all the holoprojectors moving and I'll be pretty much done.

Back at it!

It's been a while since I last made a post, but that doesn't mean I haven't been working! I've got a ton of pics to upload, so I'll break them up for several post over the next few days.

It's been about 2 months since I've last made a post, and majority of that time has been used for gathering parts.

Parts on parts on parts on parts....

Most of the time has been spent 3d printing all the detail parts for the leg assemblies. Almost have all of them done at this point. Will need to then clean them up and paint before they are ready to be installed to the legs.

Also purchased the leg sets (that brown box in the background of the above pic). These guys come in a kit that will need to be glued together to create the actual leg strut. More on that later.

At the same time, I purchased the frame too! Both the leg struts and frame are made by the same guy, one of the more senior builders in the club. Lucky for me he leaves only about 30 minutes away so I was able to pick them up in person!

I originally wanted to go with the nice aluminum frame made by Com8 (builder in the club), however costing over $1000 I just couldn't bring myself to do it. So the other alternative was this wood frame that hundreds of builders have used with great results, and at only $260, I couldn't pass it up.

Right now I have it temporarily put together until I am ready to glue it in place. I am waiting on getting the aluminum body skins first, because I need to use the skins when gluing the frame to ensure that everything fits up nice before I pass that point of no return.

Next post I will cover my starting of the internal dome integration! I will post about the HoloProjector mount system I installed and talk about setting up the automated control movement for these guys.

Final Touches on the Outer Dome

It's been difficult to find time, but I was able to squeeze in final painting of the Outer Dome.

It's been raining a lot here in Southern California lately, so I've also been delayed with final painting for that reason as well.  But the planets aligned and I was able to paint!

Since I had already done all the masking, it was a quick few minutes of work to get the metallic gunmetal color painted on the Outer Dome.

I was VERY careful and made sure to make multiple super light coats rather than only a few heavy coats. I was definitely worried about paint bleeding through the masking I had done, especially since it was a couple of weeks between when I masked and when I actually got to paint.

I let it cure overnight, and went right for removing the masking the next day. It was a tedious process, but then again I may have been a little too cautious when removing. I REALLLLY didn't want to mess up the red paint underneath.

Look at that!

I have to say, it came out perfect.There was absolutely no bleeding onto the red parts. Very crisp and clean paint job.

It looks very Sith-like with this scheme... wasn't anticipating that, but I'm digging it. 

It was now time for the final clear coat. I spent a good amount of time considering the type of finish I wanted,and in the end went with a Satin textured finished. 

This muted the colors a bit, and gave a rough cement-like finish to the Dome. I think this gives it a more hardy, durable feel, which a military droid should be, right? It also looks like it will protect the paint from pretty much all but the worse damage.

In the mean time, I've been starting to acquire detail parts for the leg assemblies (3d printing like crazy!) as well as the body frame! Frame should be here next week, and then still waiting on the Holo Projector mount and control system, which will be the final part assemblies for the dome.

It's been a while since I've posted, but this is a quick update about starting the final paint process for the Outer Dome.

As I am waiting for more parts to come in, I took the opportunity to work on prepping and painting the Outer Dome. 

It had been some time since I had last worked on the Dome, so the initial primer coat was definitely cured and reading for paint. My idea was to paint the red panels and other details first, mask all those areas up once they cure, then paint the remaining base gun metal color.

Painting the red details was the easy part. I took some 400 grit sand paper and hit all the areas that would be receiving the red paint as it's final color. Didn't care much about the other areas as they will get prepped prior to final paint.

Candy Canes? Christmas in March...

The satin finish turned out pretty well! Color is definitely what I was hoping for on the Dome.

After letting that cure, I went straight into masking up all the areas to prep for the final gunmetal color. All I did was using typical blue painters tape and covered up all the areas that would stay red. I'm hoping this works as well as I have envisioned come time to paint.

All masked up and ready for final paint! 

Now just to find some time away from work.... the weekend can't come soon enough!

Winter in SoCal?! Not quite...

Thanks to the unusually high temperatures, I've been able to get a lot of painting done!

Yes, even for Southern California this time of year, the weather has been pretty hot lately. Though I do love the cold, cozying up with a blanket and a move, I can't help but be happy. This weather provides the perfect conditions for painting parts!

And what better timing to have my Holoprojectors arrive! Yep, one of the final parts for the Dome assembly has finally arrived and is ready to work.

I was able to find an independent vendor on the Astromech Builder's forum who specializes is making custom resin parts for R2 builders. Long story short, I was able to get a set of resin Holoprojectors for much cheaper than an aluminum set.

First thing's first; I had to fit them up. Make sure they look as awesome as I have been picturing in my mind.

Yep! Looks good to me.

Outer and Inner Dome fit up with one of the Holoprojectors.

Okay, now that I got that itch out, it was time to actually do some work. Fortunately, all that needs to be done for the Holoprojectors is paint. Once I get the mount and control hardware, I'll have to hook that up, but that'll be at a later time when I am ready to final assemble the Domes.

Using the same process as for the Radar Eye Lens Mount, I prepped up the three Holoprojector sets and started painting. This was also a great opportunity to try out the metallic paint that I had purchased and was planning to use as the main color for the droid.

After a few coats, we are looking great! Both colors came out really nice, and are exactly what I had imagined when I first came up with the concept of my droid. I feel the colors compliment each other very well, especially the satin finish of the red with the metallic gloss of the base color.

Looking good!

Once I have the Dome ready for final assembly, I'll install these with all the control hardware and hook them up to the same Arduino board which controls all the dome lighting effects.

I'm working on a custom Arduino sketch which will control all three Holoprojectors to move randomly on their own, creating a realistic AI droid feel. More on that to come later.

Well, since I was already in the painting mood, I decided to go ahead and put the primer coat of paint on to the Outer Dome.

The Dome was relatively clean, so all it took was some work with steel wool, and I was ready to paint. Applying primer now allows me some extra time to get ready for the final color coats in the future.

After one coat of primer.

This one took a few more coats than the smaller paint I've been painting; about 5 or 6. But after just a few minutes, I had a smooth, complete finish. Now all I have to do for final paint is a light sanding, and I'm ready to go.

R2-N7 - Hoth Variant, anyone?? I kind of like the white!

Next up will most likely be final painting of the outer dome (as I wait for more money so I can get those Holoporjector mounts and control hardware :p ). This should be interesting.... but fun!