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Tuesday, October 27, 2009

Out of the country for awhile

October was a busy month and not much done in the building department. We did a last minute trip to Ireland and had a great time. With Halloween coming up, I decided to redo the back door because it just didn't fit correctly. There was a gap and it rode a little too high. Plus the paint job on the rear door wasn't very good and it needed to be sanded down and prepped better.

This was on my mind for the last couple weeks so the first thing I did when I got back was removed the power coupler from the rear door as that was my number one suspect on why the door rode too high. Nope, that wasn't the culprit. It turns out the pegs I have in the frame that the door slides onto were hitting the bottoms of the coin returns. So after removing the pegs I cut about 3/8 of an inch from them and now the door fits much better. The power couplers will be fairly easy to re-attach with a fresh tube of glue.

Doors are primed and ready for some final coats of paint. This weekend R2 went back out to the garage and to go for a long walk to do last minute checking of the drive systems. All systems go for Halloween.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Glad to hear that you had a good trip. I was beginning to get bored here in cyberspace... I am struggling to get my new radio system working. I changed to the system Calvin T is using that uses a PS2 wireless controller with the hope that it would end my interference issues. The interference is gone, but so far, it only has worked sporadically. Anyhow after 5 different controllers, I think its finally working... I hope. Nice to have you back. Please post some pictures of your vacation, and maybe one or two of your robots, welder, something!

Gary

Jim said...

Gary after going through 5 controllers, you should now realize that a spektrum Dx7 or Dx6 is what you need for Christmas this year. A nice safe system that doesn't have you worrying about interference from other radio operators which could be a challenging situation when R2 runs amuck into a crowd of people.

Our Ireland pics and video are at http://www.asthmastory.com/ireland.php

Gary said...

Jim,
Luckily Walmart has a liberal return policy :) Its a low cost solution that has several advantages. Mainly though, its the small size of the controller that I like. I am trying to come up with a realy discrete method of running R2. With a modded and downsized PS2 controller I can put it in a very small leather pouch (about 6"x3"x3") with the joysticks facing straight down. A hole in the bottom of the pouch lets me casually rest my hand on it, with a finger manipulating the joystick through the hole. It'll fit on my belt and hopefully keep the kids, and adults guessing whose running R2. When I'm finished, I intend to post a writeup and pics on the forums.

Gary

Jim said...

I hear you Gary. Discreet is very good when controlling a droid. My leather shoulder bag works pretty good and surprisingly most people don't figure out it's me controlling the droid. I've had dozens of people all around me talking and asking each other how the droid is being controlled. Many have stood next to me and asked. It definitely would be better with a more compact mechanism than I currently use. But I would worry about frequency's being compromised and losing control of the droid.