So, it’s been a while since I last posted anything. To be honest, I haven’t had much time to work on R2, but when I have, I’ve taken photos and put them on my Mac but that’s about it.
I have an iPhone now. I can take pics and videos and upload them with the handy dandy iPhone app for wordpress. It’s a perfect solution.
That is if I remember to post updates…
Logic Displays- those little sparkly lights on the front and back of the dome that make R2, well, R2. They tell you this is a live thing, that something’s going on inside that dome of his.
The original logic displays were fiber optics that ran to a light with a color wheel. That is so 1977. Today we have LED’s and computers to get the same effect. I lucked out and was blessed to get a Hyperdyne set (expensive) from a friend for practically nothing. I truly believe that God has been blessing this build, and so far He has helped me save a lot of money on the build. Amen!
What the boards look like:
Rear logic
I had a friend make some black screens for these at work on the CNC (I’ve GOT to get one someday).
Screen next to the rear logic bezel
And the rear display mounted.
Rear display mounted
And the front displays being mounted
Mounting of front displays
And from the front of the dome:
Front logics in place
Next up: Adding in the PSI light circuits
Moving along, the next step was in mounting the holoprojectors – the projector lens housings that stick out of the dome in a few different spots. For the most part, the two that go on the top and back of the dome are painted all silver, and I used acrylic cabachon lenses from Craftics, which cost me something like $5.00 a piece. Ask for Tracy Pineda and tell her what you want them for.
So, I thought I’d really focus this post on the front HP, which is going to move via RC servos and be hooked up to an automated system. One of the builders on Astromech.net developed and sold a kit that holds the moveable HP (which comes in resin or aluminum). The kit is all CNC cut styrene.
All the bits with some of the hardware
There’s really no instructions- just a list of hardware that’s needed, and the design of the rig from different angles so you can kind of get how it goes together. The rest is trial and error- thus why it’s called droid building. There are some things you need to sand, grind away, and so on to get it to go together and eventually fit into the dome next to the PSI housing. I decided to paint the front HP to match the one from Star Wars A New Hope.
All the pieces together
After assembling it, I needed to add a small tube to the base of the HP that would a: be actuated by the servos, and b: used to route the wires for the light inside the HP.
The copper tube
Then I needed to find a suitable light source- in this case it was a LED push light for $3.99 from the hardware store. Some dismantling, adding some wires, and voila!
Light board mounted
Side view
Built completed:
Assembled
Another view
Added some servos then did some grinding to get the HP to fit next to the PSI.
Ground down
And mounted with servos from the inside. I uses a liberal amount of silicon glue to hold this in:
HP mounted
And from the front:
HP in!
Next up: Logic displays
There’s been a debate on astromech.net about what the diffusers are for the PSI lights are – the blue and red light on the front of the dome and the green and yellow one on the back of the dome. These are known as Process State Indicators, and sometimes tell how R@ is feeling, or can also tell when he’s processing something (and the flash faster accordingly like the activity light on a hard drive). Some guys sell diffusion lenses (spendy), and others find diffusers from materials at the local hardware store. Me? Old milk jugs cut up and glued in…
Milk jug circle
Glued to the PSI housings
And in the dome…
PSI's mounted
Howdy. For lack of a better term of hello, I decided to use Howdy. So, last look at the dome, it was painted silver.
I did paint all the blue panels (but didn’t take any photos). The process was sand them, primer them with automotive gray, wet sand, then a layer of silver paint, wait 10 minutes, then a clear purple, wait, then clear blue, wait, purple, and then a clear coat.
The Radar eye photos show that process sort of. Also are some pics of the lens, which is one of those hobby ornaments from Michael’s you can fill with potpourri. Photos below:
The eye painted silver
Purple then blue 1st pass
and then one more purple coat and clear coat
The lens uncut
The lens cut to size and not painted
The lens installed to the back of the eye
The finished eye!
The eye now mounted
It’s been a long time since I last posted, but that’s how life is. You get a job, and then you find you have very little time to update a blog or do much of anything else except enjoy what time you have with your family and friends.
So I haven’t been posting here, nor on my design blog at gregschumsky.com. I have though been working on R2 here and there as time permits, mostly nights when dinner is getting ready or everyone’s off to bed.
I need to get the little guy done though – God has been prompting me a LOT lately to finish this and get R2 to Rady Chidren’s Hospital and the Ronald McDonald house by this summer. The droid is going to be our ministry- to share the gospel and good news of Christ with families, bring a smile to kids’ faces who are suffering from some form of disease, and make new friends.
So, I wrote a small book called “R2andU- How to be a servant of God”, which is about 10 pages, and discusses how R2 was a hero, friend, servant, loyal, trustworthy, brave, humble, and so on; which we’re going to give to families when we visit, as well as to churches with children’s ministries. Our first test will be at our church, The Rock San Diego. An idea for the book cover:
So, I’ll be putting up a lot of posts of the progress that’s been made. Next up- the dome progress.
Probably one of the most iconic or recognizable parts of R2-D2 is his dome. We’ve made quite a lot of progress on it, but for the sake of this being a build blog, I’ll turn on the Way Back Machine and post these of the day we got the dome and the work we had to do once we got it out of the box (that, and I’ve been too lazy, I mean busy, to post pics and progress). Hold on Sherman!
There it is in all it's styrene glory...
We decided to go with a laser cut styrene dome, both due to budget (aluminum ones cost a small mint), and ease of working on.
The base ring
The dome comes pre-laser cut to a point, with this nifty base that eventually becomes the silver ring at the base of the dome.. thus the name of being the base ring..And you thought I made that al up, didn’t you?
Connor working on the dome
Yeah, it was pretty dirty when we got it. Lots of slag from the lasers that cut out all the lines.
Sanding the inner dome
The dome for R2 is actually made of 2 domes- an inner and an outer. The outside dome has all the panels that get painted, while the inner dome acts as a base for those to get glued back onto, and in some cases, be support for any panels that open and close.
Panels numbered ad ready to be removed
Before removing the outer panels, I went with advice from the other builders on astromech.net (yep, there’s a website for building these) and numbering each panel so I’d know where it should go when it was time to put this all back together.
Panels are out
Now that the panels were out, it was time to clean up the laser cuts. I had to be very careful now that the structure was weakened without the big panels in.
Together again
By now the dome was starting to take on the R2 look. Next, painting the domes.
Primering all the panels
1st step- primer the panels and dome with a gray automotive primer, then wet sand each piece.
Primed and sanded
Yeah, each piece…
Almost there
1st coat of silver on the dome. Since it’s not metal, the trick is to try and get it close.
Everything ready for the next step.
So now that everything has been silvered, it was time to start painting all the panels R2-D2 blue. That will be covered in my next post.
The pictures below are the beginning stages of our father-son project, a full-sized movie accurate (well, that’s kind of a misnomer), radio-controlled R2D2. I had already been putting time in to help my daughter on her recording EP, by converting my design studio at home into a multi-track recording studio.
So, I needed to do something with my son. We were going to work on an old car, but my daughter didn’t like that since she wanted to do the same thing — both kids love old classic cars, so someday we’ll do one together. But for now I needed to find something to do with the boy. And thus R2D2 it is.
The project sprang not only from wanting to do a project together, but he has a heart for children who are sick, and wanted to have something to cheer them up a but when we eventually go to visit different kids at either Children’s Hospital or the children’s convalescent center. This is what my son wants to do as part of our church’s (The Rock San Diego) Cancer Care ministry as well as any other way God wants to use him and the droid for His kingdom (everything we do should be to glorify Him and His kingdom).
So for now we have a frame that we finished building, using both wood screws and copious amounts of wood glue. We also have some other parts here and there as we can afford to buy them and collect what we can when parts are available from other people who have built their own astromech.
