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Sunday, September 20, 2009

My droid is officially DONE

Yes, it's been a very very productive week working on R2D2. It's amazing to see him complete and looking good. All the little details are finished and the electronics have been organized and made much more efficient. The ankle cylinders and wedges are installed and the holes in the foot shells are complete and I even started weathering them.

I redid the electric to allow me to completely disconnect the motors in an emergency. Because if you break down and are a ways from your base, it's possible to push the droid. But if you push R2, the motors will generate electricity and I'm told that it could do serious harm to your electronics. So I'm glad I have a quick disconnect system in place which also allows me to remove my main electronics panel quickly. R2 also has a plug and switch that will allow me to put him on a charger with no worries of someone accidentally powering on R2 while the charge is in progress. Because that too will completely fry the electronics. Now the switch can be toggled to "Charge" or "Activate Droid". To Charge, I modified a battery charger and added a plug to the ends that will mate up with the reciprocating plugs on R2. And it works nicely too.

I say R2 is officially done but there will be a phase II which will entail trying to get a periscope to work and possibly an upside down fire extinguisher to make fog via the remote. Plus I'll be working with the new JEDI controller once it is received.

When I get my camera back from warranty work I'll take some pictures. R2 looks and runs great. It's a good feeling after a couple years of working on R2 off and on. A challenging couple years in more ways than I can explain here.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Congratulations Jim!

Gary

Jim said...

Thanks Gary