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!

3 Day Weekends are meant for Projects! Part 2

Wasn't able to get as much work done today as I was hoping, but what it lacked in quantity, it made up in quality.

I had originally thought about primering the Inner and Outer Domes today, however the more I thought about it, the more I realized that I wasn't quite at that stage yet. There are still several components I need to mount to the inner dome, so I'd rather get those all squared away instead of cutting and drilling on an already painted dome.

The big win for today was that I got the Inner Dome to fit on the Mounting Ring! Once again, it was my dremmel tool to the rescue.

I was having just a tiny bit of interference during the fitup, so the first thing that came to mind for a resolution was to add a chamfer to the Inner Dome. Putting this angled edge on the dome will allow the two pieces to more easily slide together and is pretty common design feature for mating parts like this.

After about two passes with the dremmel tool, I fit it up. It was still a bit tight, but it fit! Took some light tapping with a rubber mallet to get the Dome to seat all the way on the Ring.

With this achieved, I was now also able to drill the alignment holes between the Inner Dome and Mounting Ring. These match drilled holes will hold small screws, which will lock the Inner Dome and Mounting Ring together. So once the Mounting Ring is spun, the Inner Dome follows.

For the first hole, I picked a spot on the rear side which could easily hide the defect if I had messed up. Due to there being little openings on the dome, there wasn't much visibility to where I was drilling, so my first shot was mostly a guess.

I like to leave little notes for myself..... :)

As you can probably tell, my first hole didn't turn out too well. I drilled it too close to the bottom of the Dome, which did not leave enough space for the nut to be run down on the screen on the inner side.

Missed it by that much!

Well, that's part of the fun of this project! It's all a learning experience. My second hole was dead on, so I can now take the measurement and apply it to the next several holes around the circumference of the dome for when I'm ready to final install the two parts. For now, just one for alignment purposes.

Next update should include some more parts coming in. I just received word that my 3 Holo Projectors are ready to ship. That should be the final structural part of the entire dome! 

Until then,back to reality...

3 Day Weekends are meant for Projects! Part 1

The Dome has arrived!

Yes, I am sure you are all just excited as I am. The Dome has arrived! This is probably the most significant part of the entire build! And definitely the most recognizable.

I opened this bad boy up as soon as I had the chance. Included was the Outer Dome, Inner Dome, Mounting Ring, and the Support Ring. I also needed the Rockler bearing, but as mentioned in a prior post, I already had this part ordered a while ago.

Pictured below is the Outer Dome, Mounting Ring, Rockler bearing, and the complete bearing assembly including Mounting Ring, Rockler bearing, and Support Ring.

The details on the features is incredible!

The Inner Dome is essentially the same as the Outer Dome, but is designed to house all the fasteners attaching all the different parts, motors, servos, etc. required to move the dome, but keeps them hidden under the Outer Dome.

Mounting Ring.

Finally, the Rockler Bearing shows itself!

The Support Ring is the "Peace Sign" shaped part. This allows for mounting of motors and other electrical parts for convenience.

Everything went together fairly smoothly, with one exception. The Inner Dome was not cooperating and I could not get it on top of the Mounting Ring in its designated groove. This will require so extra modifications to the Inner Dome and/or Mounting Ring so that I can get them to fit. Will save that for another day since this is all just a test fit up.

Once I verified all the mounting parts were good to go, I moved on to preparing for finishing the domes. Received out of the box, the domes will have some extra material around the cuts from the laser machining process, so Step 1 was for me to remove all this.

Before. This was present on about 50% of the cuts on both domes.

This stuff is pretty sharp and will actually cause the Inner and Outer Domes to bind up when trying to put them together, so it's important to remove all this material before trying that. Luckily, I recently purchased a nice dremmel tool which made grinding out all these rough spots a breeze.

After. Not to worry about the appearance; all this is on the inside of the Domes and won't be seen.

Once everything was all cleaned up, I fit up the domes. They fit almost perfect, a bit off on some of the cutouts, however this is not too much of a problem. The last item I had on the schedule for today was to fit up the Radar Eye Mount I had finished in a previous post.

The locating holes for this piece on the Inner Dome only, so I needed to fit up the domes, and mark on the Outer Dome these locations so that I could drill them out. A few minuted later, and I had the Mount all fit up. Aside from some minor hardware issues that will be addressed later, it all fit up well.

Well whattya know, that looks pretty good! R2's starting to take shape! You can see I also fit up the FLD mounts. Perfect!

Up next will be a lot of painting on the domes, stay tuned!

A lot of good work this weekend! Radar Eye Assembly 100% Complete!

I was able to send a good few hours working in the garage today, The Radar Eye is totally complete, painted, and ready for installation!

The gameplan for today was to cut the Radar Eye Lens to fit inside the mount correctly, prep and paint both the lens and the mount, and install the lens into the mount. Easier said than done!

So Step 1 was to cut the lens, since it was too large to fit flush inside the mount. I needed to make sure the lens was completely recessed in the mount, because if not, there would be interference issue when installing the mount to the dome.

I fit up the lens into the mount, and traced out a line marking where the extra material would need to be removed. Then mounted it up in my vice and prepared to cut off the material.

There is a small tab on the edge of the bulb that I used to clamp in the vice.

I soon found out that cutting tool I was using was generating so much heat, it was actually melting the plastic at the same time it was cutting! This didn't exactly create a problem, but I had to change my approach with how I was using the cutting tool.

About 10 minutes later, I had completed the cut. I did a first rough cut, to remove most of the extra material, then did another couple passes to cut at the marked line as accurate as possible.

All in all, the part turned out near perfect. After a quick fit up in the mount, it was now time to paint the lens. The weather was finally a bit warmer today which provided a great environment for painting.

After about 3 coats, I had the consistency I was looking for in the lens. Not solid black, more of a smokey effect. One thing to note is that I painted the inside of the lens, and not the outside. By doing this, I was able to maintain the natural gloss finish of the plastic, but achieve the coloring affect I was looking for.

You can see the difference with the left image showing the inside painted surface, and the final affect for the outside.

Now that the lens is complete, I moved on to prepping the mount for painting. Because the part was 3D printed, the surface isn't really all that smooth. It's more like a "stepped" surface, so that means I needed to sand it to smooth it out.

This was definitely the most time consuming task of the day. And messy. I didn't quite get it completely smooth, but it I later found out that it was good enough. And even left a more textured look to the part that I wasn't expecting. I like it!

The paint I choose is a bit darker than the original color of the printed parts. And also has a nice sating finish.

I stepped out of the garage for a bit to spend some time with my daughter and parents, which let the paint on the mount dry. I came back a few hours later and was ready to install the lens to mount.

Just to make sure, I checked the clearances again. I must've gotten lucky, because the lens fit perfectly in the mount. I was even able to press it down into the mount to give about 1/4" of extra clearance, which would provide enough space for the glue I used to bond them together. 

Next, add in a $2 glue gun and a steady hand to put the final touch. I'm pretty sure the preload from pressing the lens into the mold (force fit) would have been enough to keep it in place, but I wanted to add the glue as a secondary method.

The glue drys pretty quickly, so it was done just as quick as I applied it. I then just had to clean up some of the extra glue, and BOOM! Finished product!

Starting to look familiar, eh???

Complete and ready for installation on the Dome. 

.... and **SPOILER ALERT**... my Dome is ordered and will be here in just a few days!