I can see the light...

Well a lot has been going on. The electronics work is about 80% done. The dome is about 90% done since I just have to finish cutting the dome panels and the front logic displays. The Rear logics are mounted, but they still need the fiber optic conversion. The logib displays on are hold until I can get more bezels for them. PSIs are now done. The outside of the droid only needs the battery harnesses, flat side plate, side vents, and a mounting system for the center vent surrounds to be complete. He is now pushing 175-200lbs fully loaded. I have to figure out hwo get him in a weigh in.

Lots going on, no pictures...

R2 was taken completely apart and pieces were ground down and adjusted to make way for electronics. The feet now have the NPC motors mounted and new wires pulled up the through the new holes in the feet and legs. The wires currently are just pulled into the body. The new electronics panel was cut out of 1/4" Lexan and mounting brackets were made to fit it to the frame. Some of the vertical rods on the frame were moved back to allow room for the hinges for the doors on the skins. All this done in a weekend. I now jsut have to positions the motor controllers and fuse blocks wire them up and R2 should be moving. Then I need to finish cutting the inner dome for the hinges and the dome can go back together.

R2 is almost talking

I just finished the setup of the sound system. The system consists of a VMusic2, Arduino, and speakers. I formatted a USB drive and updated the firmware on the VMusic2. I then created sound files for each sound and put them on the USB drive and created a little sketch to play all the sounds on the drive. I jsut have to write a little more logic to control the sounds through my Wii nunchucks and then install all the wiring in the droid

Kitty Litter PSI lenses and Dome moutning plates

I finished one PSI and started work on the other one. I used the large 40 pound litter containers for material. They make great PSI lenses.

The starting container


The rear plate being fitted. The holes are drilled in the dome and the plastic is clamped in place. 1 hole is drilled through the plastic and then a screw is inserted through the dome and the plastic. A T-nut is screwed to hold the plastic in place. The clamps are moved to a new location and a heat gun heats the plastic while slowly screwing the clamps down. Once the plastic is mostly in place, I used crushed ice in a baggie to cool and the plastic to form. Repeat the drilling process until the whole plate is in place.


The completed product (front). The holoprojector still needs to be cut out.

Back side of the front plate. The PSI LED holder will be changed out and the cone will have a new holder mounted soon.

PSI setup

I have been toying with some materials to use for my PSI lenses. The main concern has been that they need to hold up against poking fingers. The next thing is the space needed to diffuse the hotspots, and since I am using a multicolored LED to create any color I want it also needs to help mix the colors. After many trials and errors I think I may have found a cheap solution.

If you have or know someone who has cats, the litter can come in huge white plastic buckets. These buckets need to be able to hold 20lb-40lb, so the plastic is nice and string. I cut one of the buckets up and did a few tests and they work great with one layer of material and even better with 2 sandwiched together. The setup consists of 1 or 2 layers of litter bin material and a LED source. The barrel to contain the light source is the smaller cup of a bar tenders jigger with the bottom cut out of it. Since the jigger is metal, it reflects the light just fine.