Discouraged

Building R2 can be loads o fun but so often I find myself getting very frustrated and feel like it always takes a dozen tries to get anything to work. I put so much work into the front foot that uses one caster and it just doesn't work. The foot is angled a little where the front edge is higher than the back edge. So it's not level. And if it's not level, a single caster system just doesn't work because when the caster wheel is at 360 degrees and when the caster wheel is at 180 degrees is very different. The back edge of the foot will either be off the ground an inch or so or it will be dragging on the ground. And the sad thing is I can't figure out how to change the angle using the parts I have. There aren't a lot of different possibilities from my perspective tonight. I tried moving the ankle bolt back a few inches but it didn't make much difference.

Now I kind of understand why I've seen 2 caster systems and why I've seen the OmniBall system. The Omniball wouldn't encounter this problem (I don't think).

While experimenting tonight, a piece of my fiberglass foot broke which really was upsetting. And I also noticed a big nasty crack on my resin skirt. He's falling apart before I even get him finished. Very discouraged tonight. Should have stuck with gardening.

C3PO eyes using PIR Sensor

I've always wanted my C3PO statue to be activated by sensors when people walk by. Or at least have the lights in the eyes turn on. So the other day while picking up a set of metric taps, I noticed a battery operated LED motion detector for a little more than 9 bucks. The package said it only works in the dark but I figured I could disable the light sensor.

It was incredibly easy. I removed the circuit board from the plastic enclosure and clipped off the light sensor after doing a few experiments. I then redid the battery power to use a 9v battery instead of 4 AA batteries and I replaced their LED with a line running to C3PO's eyes. The increased voltage powers C3PO's 6 LED's. And it worked incredibly well. I then modified the original enclosure and covered it with a gold foil after cutting away the excess plastic. It fit nicely in the neck area and I snugged it in with a piece of duct tape.

So now when you walk past C3PO, his eyes light up and a few minutes later they fade out if there's no additional motion.

In R2D2 news, I've spent the entire week fabricating pieces and tapping aluminum to come up with an efficient way to mount the center wheel to the fiberglass foot shell. As of now, it looks good and everything is complete. I'll take pictures of my design after I try it out on R2 and see how it works. The 4" wheel is very wide and I'm concerned that it may not be as responsive as a smaller wheel. It's very heavy duty and industrial and might be overkill. We'll see.

Dome electronics installed

Today I fabricated mounts for the PSI's and came up with a good way to lock down the front logics with the JEDI LED's installed. For the PSI's, I dug through the trash and found a kitty litter container that I used for the PSI diffused lens. I screwed those into the inside of the dome using two pieces of the kitty litter plastic on top of each other (better diffusion) and came up with some good methods to mount the PSI LED's using various scrap I had in my workshop.

Today was one of those days where everything worked perfect first time. All the dome lights are working and have made R2 come alive. I still can't stop raving about the beautiful Electronics in the JEDI displays.

So now I have a little time to watch some football and take a break from R2.

Front foot and JEDI electronics

The front 'Daniel D' foot has been my focus the last week. It's one of those things that I took a lot of time examining and thinking about to attach it to the ankle and to attach a caster inside. It's a solid one piece fiberglass foot so attaching it to an ankle is not easy as you can't get to the area to drill holes easily. So I cut that top area out and replaced it with angled aluminum channel. Drilling holes was a little tricky and of course I was a little off but finally made it fit.

Since this foot is an inch all around bigger than standard R2 feet, I ordered a 4" caster from Caster City. But I got the super massive heavy duty caster by mistake. It's very thick and could probably support a ton. It's heavy but I'm going to try it in my R2. I'm sure nobody has anything like this in their R2 so it will be a first. And the weight will draw the center of gravity lower on my R2 which I think is a good thing.

On the electronics front, I got Scott G's JEDI electronics this week. I took the whole thing to work so during lunch hour I was able to read the directions and hook the whole thing up to a power converter I also brought with me. And ..... they work beautifully. The PSI's still need to be connected but the logics all blinked and worked like a champ. Now I can't wait to mount these in my dome because this will make my little droid come alive.

Final finishing of the motor mounts and feet

I take my time when designing things and trying new ideas. Because the ideas usually are constantly changing as the design starts coming together. Just like these motor mounts. I keep tweaking them but now I'm satisfied with the design and feel they are complete. Excess metal was trimmed, and the parts were sanded so they looked nice. Also a couple extra holes were drilled in the angle iron that holds the motor where it attaches to the motor mount. I had the room and although I probably don't need 4 bolts, why not. There's a lot of stress in this area so stronger is better.

Since I was making a mess in the garage with aluminum shavings everywhere, I decided to finish cutting the fiberglass feet battery box areas and the hole in the top that goes over the ankle. One was already started but now they're both ready to go. I still have to make some little brackets to keep the feet covers from moving around but that's trivial. The feet themselves don't support anything and have no practical value other than to cover the motor and wheel. I also did a little work on the front foot and ordered some 4" casters (because my feet are oversized) from castercity.com I'm still not sure if I'll use 1 or 2 casters in the front.

I took a day off work as I needed some garage therapy and a day to work on the robots. And it's been a great day so far with a lot accomplished.

B9 gets a tune up and brighter neon

Something that has been bothering me for a few years is the neon on my B9. It worked (but was pretty much dead the last few months) but it didn't have the intensity it needed. I completely redid my audio system to use an IPOD and merged channels to pour a stronger signal into the neon transformer interface. It took a few tries and an extra amplifier on the front end to supersize the signal. And it was worth it. I have a separate amplifier in the robots (B9 and Robby) but the front end amplifier pushes the main signal very strong to power both neons. The volume can then be turned down in the robots so it isn't too loud.

So here's a link of the two robots rehashing their rivalry from the 60's. This video doesn't show it but the TV is displaying the scene from Lost in space in synch with the two robots. Also sorry but it's a bit jerky as I was holding a small camera to film the action.