C3PO Refurb

The next project is to make a few changes to C3PO. First of all his mannequin needs modifying so his right arm is outstretched to look like he's hailing someone. Currently his arms hang to his sides. That pose is just barely adequate.

Also the restraining bolt I got from Daniel (droidstuff.com) will be installed. The restraining bolt is magnetic and will be controlling a switch to turn his eyes off and on. There's a very powerful magnetic on the restraining bolt.

And finally I'm construct a better method to hang the wires from his belly/waist. It's pretty hokey how I have the wires snaked in there now and they're constantly falling into the pelvis area. One day I had my arm in C3PO's pelvis trying to fish out some of the wires that fell when my son walked in. He looked at me slowly shaking his head. "Dad if you only knew how weird that looks".

So now C3PO is out in the workshop area being fixed up. He's going to the science center with Bender in June so he needs to look good

My romantic wife

While my wife was walking with a her coworkers downtown St. Pete today, they passed a construction site. Laying on the ground she spied a piece of cool looking scrap metallic sheet about 12 x 18". Being the romantic gal she is, she scooped it up and told the other ladies that "Jim probably will like this". I think she's getting geeky as me. The other ladies humored her as they continued their walk Yvonne lugged back that chunk of sheet sheathing.

Sure enough I NEEDED IT. My next step with Bender was to line his inside cavity with a metallic material to look like a refrigerator to store his beer. THIS WAS PERFECT ! Last night I was experimenting with an old piece of metallic foil and considering using some mirror acrylic material. But nothing came close to the metal she dragged home tonight. And it mounted inside Bender beautifully. Romantic occasions like this require nothing less than pizza and beer so we celebrated.

After adding the liner, Bender got some wires inside him and a few other finishing touches. The head was adjusted and door latch installed. Once the cigar was back in his mouth and the beer inside him, it looked like he was ready to go. His feet were kind of dirty and scuffed up so I was going to refinish them but ... feet are supposed to be a little scuffed. Looks more realistic.

Flooded with robot brain storms

I keep coming up with ideas of robots I want to build. I will probably build them but who knows when. Some of the ideas are pretty strange I must admit but they will be fun projects. I'll never be a Clayton Baily but that's the direction I have my ship pointed. Clayton Bailey makes very cool and sometimes very bizarre robot creations. He published a superb book with pictures of his creations. The creations are not for everyone. Some of the sculptures have anatomically correct (kind of) parts that make some people uncomfortable. I think they're "the tops" though (from Seinfeld).

The Bender head now has a new mouth and a fresh coat of paint. He looks GREAT. The collar area has been built up with Bondo and hopefully after getting another coat of paint there, it will look more concentric. The inside of his belly area has also been cut more and sanded with some kilz primer painted on. Since it's a lot of MDF and 2x2's, I know that using my expensive rustoleum hammered paint will just soak in. The primer will make it easier to coat the inside. After the inside is painted, I'll add some wires and electronics and fill him up with Bender's own favorite "Old Fortran" beer. Even though I don't like people to open his belly door because it's fragile, I realize he needs his beer.

On the R2 front, I haven't done much more than research. After Bender and C3PO are ready for the science museum, R2 will return to the main project. I ordered an aluminum center foot and mounting equipment for the caster. I also got on a waiting list to get an aluminum leg. Why not. Literally spending an arm and a leg on this robot. I really want the drive train on my R2 to be exactly like Daniel's which in my opinion is the absolute best.

B9 fried his ear radars the other day. So that's something else I'm going to have to add to my list of robot chores.

Giving Bender some Lip

The last month or so I've been thinking about how I could make the mouth I cut out on Bender look smoother and correct. It had a jagged look about it and I contemplated sanding it smooth but that solution would still be lacking. I kept thinking about different options and today while thinking hard it came to me. A piece of tubing around the mouth to make a lip. The first piece of tube I found in my workshop was a piece of plastic tubing. Very rigid and not flexible enough to fit around the oval mouth. Then I noticed a piece of what looked like vacuum hose. I cut a chunk of that and slit it down the middle and pushed it in around the mouth.

But black hose on Bender didn't look right so I glued the hose on using a little hot glue and then shot a little big of silver paint on it to give me a better idea how this will make him look. I also filled in a few areas with some spot putty.

This is a much better look. The mouth has much better detail now. Later this week I'll sand the spot putty and then apply a final coat of hammered silver.

Frame

Sending emails out to people trying to scare up an aluminum frame failed. If I'm going to make an aluminum framed R2 it's probably not going to happen until July or so. Being the impatient type, I decided to give the A&A frame another chance. So I bought about 9 feet more of threaded rods, spacers and bolts to reinforce the frame. Using the rods, I also rebuilt the area around the large Data port and utility arms. That area was a mess. The middle leg was also re positioned to be more close to center.

The only problem I forsee is if I install too many rods there won't beve an easy way to access the middle of R2 for batteries and such.

Motor mounts - Chapter 2

Yesterday Brad and Doug stopped over with some of their robot parts and we hung out and discussed our projects.

About 30 seconds after showing Doug my ingenius plot to make motor mounts for my R2's feet, he looked at me and said it was a good plan if I didn't mind having my motors drag along the ground while moving the R2. I was amazed that I didn't see this glaring flaw in my devious plan. I was too busy looking at how to securely mount the motor to consider all the angles. Indeed, the motor would be off the ground but only by a hair. The wires would have been ground off quickly.

So the three of us put our heads together and came up with several good alternative plans. It's going to be a good deal of work but it will be functional. We also looked at the A&A frame and everyone agrees that even after beefing it up, this particular A&A Frame in it's sad busted up state is not the right frame for the kind of R2 I want to build. I will buy an aluminum frame when one comes available. Until then I'll finish and work on the other parts I have.

The day went quickly and as usual I learned a lot from these guys experience. Doug was a machinist at one time.