R2server

[crazybillybob]

Well now that summer is drawing to an end I'm back working on R2-SRV, but before we get into that some pics from the 2nd annual Midwest builders meet held in Chicago on Aug. 5 this year. Target Practice drove up from Columbus, Ohio to attend with me. The Turn out was good, It was held at the Comfort Inn so we had a few of the kids staying the drop in to see why all the R2's were running around, (Just something about one of these little guys driving through the parking lot that draws a crowd).

There were some new Droids there, The purple one is quick! The beat up two legged Droid is made out of Cintra (PVC foam core boards), the dome is Resin (it weighs more then the body does!!), it's static display model but pretty

Everyone's favorite Little Mini R4 was back too.

And Of course we had Food, Good Droid Food

The Builders Meet Really got me fired up to finish R2 (plus I've got some Ideas for a new mod but one at a time....for now ) But a vacation, and boat load of work (work work ,and wife work) has keep me busy since then. But I finial got to work this weekend on R2.

I'm trying to make a set of stiff inserts for the front doors (on the right and left of R2's chest). I have the outer layer there in styrene, but the doors keep wanting to flatten out, and the body is round so it doesn't work so well. The doors are to be moveable (open close) so that I can put things in there.....not telling what yet don't want anyone hopes to get dashed This spring I get a set of battery boxes for R2 from one of the other builders (he makes then in his basement) and there made out of PVC pipe, heated, reshaped, with extra PVC parts glued on. He also showed a group of us how to reform PVC, it was easy. So I thought after my fiber glassing mistakes that I'd try the PVC path for these doors.

First thing to do was get some pipe......Off to Home Despot!

An 8 foot section of 3.5" thin wall PVC pipe....Perfect

After a meeting with the Chop saw....A more manageable 20" piece of pipe.

Next a trip to the table saw, to split one side of the pipe length wise (pic didn't turn out of this)

Then I heated the PVC with my heat gun...Spread it out (Make sure to wear gloves that plastic gets HOT!!!) Reheat and smash between two pieces of 3/4" plywood. You get some thing like this...

I know your thinking....That's not going to help make the doors curved....your right, but it makes it easier to remold it when it's flat.

So I broke out my handy dandy R2 Shaped form thingy

Heated the PVC and formed it over the plywood section.
Well the our come sucked, It's too deeply bent in the middle, too shallow on the edges and there's a big dimple in the center....

Well I got looking at my form (cause every thing I pull off it is screwed up the same way.) there are high spots where the support members are, low spot where there not and the edges flex way to much....it's junk!

So I decide that I'll make a solid buck this time. After a bit of tracing (the out side edge of R2 where the doors will be) I came up with this Profile template.

So I know how high and wide the buck needs to be. If I glue up some 2x4" scrap it'll fit, after a quick dive in the scrap box I get the pieces I need. Then I realize that I don't own any bar clamps...and this thing is going to be 18" long and 12" wide....what to do??? Redneck Tech..I pulled out my ball of bailer twine (yes this really came off of hay/straw bales) and some scrap wood. The Twine goes around the pieces to be glued then into a hole at each end of the scrap wood. This way when you twist the scrap wood you tighten the string.....Being that this is a buck and not a finished work, I just dry wall screwed the scraps to the buck to keep them from loosening.

( No one's Questioning my Handle now are they )

The Gorilla glue dried over night, I'll scrap off the extra with a sharp chisel.

Then Run the ends through the table saw (so we know that there square) and we've got a 17" blank.

Now two more trips through the table saw to get as much extra wood off as we can before the profile is roughed in (the profile was drawn on the end of the blank to set the cuts)

With all the Wood removed that can be with the saw, the blank is clamped to the bench and Roughed in by hand (yeap, a jackplane , Chisel and rubber mallet).

Once it was roughed in (very close to perfect), the belt sander smoothed things up, I check the profile intermittently with the profile template, marked the hig spots and sanded them down, checked marked , sanded...repeat till perfect.

At this Point I heard the Announcer on the radio say "Good Wednesday morning, it's 12:07 here at " and realized I need ed to be going to work in a few hours.....sleep would be smart. So I'll see how this buck works and let you all know !

It’s Great to be back !!!!

CrazyBillyBob

[crazybillybob]

After much delay and deliberation, I've started on the Dome Electronics...Yeap some of the R2 Bling will be going in.

I'm starting first with the front logics. These were Designed by the founder of the R2 builders club, with this run being made by Ben and Jason (ok, I helped in the Prototype stage and finding the PCB fab shop).
The Displays, randomly flash and fade 40 3mm Ultra Bright LEDs (mix of Blue and white) It also has the ability to scroll a message across like a marquee, when triggered. The Message is programmed by a serial connection. (think a little adapter and hyperterm), and trigger by dropping the trigger line to Gnd.

This is what I started with....Looks like fun

After some work and a bit of time (about 45min to an hour each) I ended up with these things.

The LEDs a packed very tightly so soldering them is painful!

But the Results they are worth it!

You'll not that it looks like the lights are turned off in the room in this picture. They are not, in fact it's as brightly lite as is was in the previous two pics. The LEDs are so Bright the camera darkened everything around them.

The next step is to be able to trigger that scrolling message remotely. To do that I need a remote switch..... Well I've got less channels on my 7channel remote then I've got thing to switch (ok or planed things )
So I'm going to start making a multiplexer....sort of.
I'm going to make a plate that will allow a servo ti sit in the middle and toggle diffrent switches on and off based on how far the servo wheel spins.

I'm starting with a piece of that flattened PVC I have left over from the door panels gone bad.

Then I'll cut out a square the size of the top of the servo, and mark and drill 4 pilot hole for the screws to hold the servo to the PVC. Then mount the Servo.

I also had to use a bit of scrap PVC to raise the roller switch to the correct height. As I add more devices I'll be adding more roller switches. In the above pic the switch is in the off position.

In this pic you can see that the roller has fallen into the notch that is cut into the servo's wheel, this is the on position. The great thing about the roller switches is that they have both normally open (when no pressure is on the switch there's no connection) and normally closed (when no pressure is on the switch there is a connection). What this feature allows me to do is depress the switch when I want it off and turn it on when I release the switch.

Now I need to work on mounting the Logics....That will be next time on this old Droid!


CrazyBillybob

once mounted I'll get some video of the scrolling message.

[crazybillybob]

Part of today's update will be off on a tangent.
Over the weekend I setup R2 to be a Mechwarrior 4 Mercs Online Server, with the MekTek Mech Packs ( Downlaodable here). He's up 24/7 come and join in (Redneck Games). So I've been playing a bit of Mechwarrior lately! I've got these cool joysticks for it (Saitek X45's) and found out they work in BF2, and BF2142 (they didn't work in BF1942 that's why I stopped using them) Well Sitting back in my Desk chair my lap was getting crowded and I was getting my butt kick because I had to fish the track ball up off the floor, or one of the joysticks, or I'd hit some keys with the joys it was just bad.... So I built a couple of little shelves for my Chair and mounted my Joysticks there (think Rocket Man!!!)

Now everything is Right at hand and mounted solidly (makes flying in Bf so much easier )

Close up of Joy

The Saitek Joysticks have mounting slots built into the base, so I just bolted them to the little shelves, a bit of self adhesive Velcro under the TrackBall so it stays where I want it! Very happy with this Rig!

Ok, now to the small R2 update.

To allow the Dome to spin there is a bearing mounted under the dome like so:

So far I've had the bearing only attached to the body frame by 2 screws into this temp Spacer across the middle of the top frame ring.

It worked ok, but over time the weight of the dome bouncing as R2 drives around has started to deform the mounting area on the bearing, as well as letting the Dome bounce back and forth about 1/2" not good! To fix this I'm making a new spacing ring that is .9" thick and 18" in Dia. With a 6" hole in the center. I'll be making it in a similar fashion as the rings for the frame were made...but I've learned a bit so I'm going to apply that new knowledge to make thins go smoother

Here we've got the 1/4" birch Plywood and the 3/4" birch plywood, you can see that I have the lines laid out for the 18" circle and the 6" hole. You will also note that there is a circle in between the two, this is where the screws that hold the bearing will go, it will be very helpful in lining up my screw placing template that I made up in CAD.
That's where we're at now... I'll get the rings cut and trued up this week and mounted. I know your thinking is that ALL? nope I've been working on a bunch of stuff for in the dome, but it's not real exciting or photo able yet. I'm working on how to mount the LED matrixes, and the PSI lights...Trebly boring stuff but it must be done... Their also calling for snow here starting tomorrow...So My thoughts of painting this weekend are shot! maybe I'll make the LDP (large data port....It's the blue curved rectangle on the front of R2 just below his dome) not sure yet. Oh, I almost forgot R2SRV is Folding (I'm trying to find the cure Are you?). Till next Time!!

CrazyBillyBob

[crazybillybob]

It's been awhile since I've updated everyone on my progress. I have been working more on R2 then will be in this update (gotta get some more pics), but work has been getting in my way of getting a post up (this Fiscal year can't end fast enough!).

In the last installment you saw the bearing spacer plate laid out on square stock. This time you'll see how I get that square perfectly round.

First I cut out a rough circle with the scroll saw (for the 1/4" piece) and the jig saw (for the 3/4" piece). The layout circle was a guide and I tried to leave between 1/8" and 1/4" of space between the cut and the layout line. The out come looks like this.

I created a jig for my router table that allows you to make a perfect circle. It's a piece of 1/4" plywood bolted to the router table with a screw in it, real high tech stuff By adjusting the distance between the edge of the router bit and the screw I can adjust the diameter of the circle. To mount the wood to the jig I drilled a 1/8" hole in the center of the board. then use the jig screw to hole the board to the jig. Here's the thin board mounted to the router table.

Just turn the router on and spin the board around, and out come this.

Now I just have to mount the bearing to it and center the whole thing on R2's body....more to come on this.

While I was working on the spacer I figured it was time to take care of those detail pieces that had the blistered paint on them.

After the paint was removed the booster cover got another coat of primer

This is just the first of many!

It's kind of good that the paint on the utility arm bubbled because I didn't like how rough parts of it looked once the paint dried (the area's that didn't bubble) so I started reglazing it, hoping that it will help make the finish smoother this time.

Being that the highs up here are only 50F it's going to take a few days for this stuff to dry so I'll get back to it later. I don't want any cracks or such in them.

It's a lite update for being quite so long but I've been working on some more body details and I'm going to have to adjust some of the drive components so there's more to come real soon (seeing that I've gotta have my little buddy up and running in just over a week for a LAN party)


Your humble hillbilly astromech tech,
CrazyBillyBob

[crazybillybob]

Aero,

I've started looking a diffrent direction for R2's swivel power interface I'm looking into comercial slip rings there not cheap but they can handle more power and alot more signals (like 24 total lines). The Circuit board one that I was looking at makeing would have handled maybe a couple of amps. How much power it could deliver is based on the thickness of the copper on the board, the width of the trace and the surface area of the transfer (the more surface are where the brush and trace meet the lower the resistance = more current).

As for the powering R2's CPU while driving around....I've not implemented it yet. But I'm much closer now, I've just need to order the 12V 12AH battery and build a circuit to charge the battery while alowing the CPU to run from it at the same time. That was a little harder to figure out then one would think, I had to talk with one of the guys I work with to come up with the charging circuit, I just need to buid it now

Sorry that's all the help I've got.
CrazyBillyBob

[crazybillybob]

So By now your all thinking that I've give up on R2...NOPE Just a little busy.
The part I've been working on has been kicking my butt. The shape has been difficult to covert from 2d Drawing (think a picture with dimensions) into a flat-pack (a drawing that’s used when your going to form everything out of a sheet of flat metal) It's got an angled cut on a curve that took me abit to work out. In this ref pic here there's a cylinder in the way but you get the Idea.

With everything laid out

The Hard part is done Now I just cut each peice out

Then Clamp it up for Brazing, I'm Brazing instead of welding because tese parts are not structural and it's easier to do on this thin sheet metal (22ga).

With It all brazed up and a light bit of sanding (to get all the slag off), The First one is done! One more to go

I only built one at first to make sure my math and drawings were right now that this one worked out I'll go ahead and finish the second one (already have it cut out).

The mother board should be back soon, Once that's back I think I'm going to redesign the mother board tray, as I think that it flexed to much and that's what casued the failure.... So if anyone has any new Ideas please let me know!

Well back to the shop!

CrazyBillybob

[crazybillybob]

In this Installment of this old Droid we're showing you how discount LED Christmas lights can be used to Pretty up your Droid.

A long while ago you all saw me Drill an absurd number of 3mm holes ( 108 ) in some 1/8" aluminum.

Well I dug it back out for use till a new custom Display can be built (that Scrolls Messages like the front).
Here's the items I have to work with

The LED Christmas lights were on Clearance ($3ea) at Walgreens, but I had to have a Friend ship them in from Florida, Seems the Walgreens here in the North didn’t carry them at all this year. Each set has 20 LEDs strung together, so I'll be using 6 sets (the extra will be bundled up and hidden. They will be driven by a "Pic Flasher" from Carl's electronics. The LED Strings run on 4 AA's (6V) the Flasher runs on 9V so I'll just switch out the Resisters that come with the kit for some 390 ohm ones, which will keep the LED's from burning up when run on 9V.

After several hours of random insertion and hot glue you get to this (not quite done but getting there) There's like 3hours of watching movies and burning my fingers in there pwned Not to everyone, Hot glue is hot, and sticky it stays moltten for awhile, and hurts the whole time so don't get it on you.

After Testing all the LED strings I tidy up a bit, some black tape, some final connections to the Pic Flasher we're ready to go.

Nope, Some idiot wired all the LED strands backwards to the Pic Flasher... It's so Hard to get good help these days!)
By the time I figured that out It was too late in the night to pull all the wires out of the Flasher and fix it.
So Next Time on this Old Droid (tonight) I'll get it rewired, and film the lights running (video forth coming).

Thanks for Tuning in to This Old Droid.
Up next DYI Hyperdrives




CrazyBillyBob

This is my first step into the Dome Electronics, I'm hoping that it will kick me in the butt and I'll get the rest pumped out soon ( with the holidays, and my wife not in school for the last 2 months. my motivation has been lacking, hopefully this will change now).

[crazybillybob]

Just to Prove that I'm not Scared of you Dave!!

CrazyBillyBob

This Space For Rent



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[crazybillybob]

I've gotten the wiring sorted out on the Rear Logic display.

The Blinking pattern is ok, Not sure what I was hoping for, but it will do!

Here's a Quick link to a Video of the display in action. (it's 36Mb so modems beware! and you'll need a MOV player like QuickTime to view it).

Now that the display is complete I'm moving on to the next system....
Sound I'm starting out with this nice Chinese made I-Fraud I-shuffle Mp3 player.

I'm toying with the Idea of making it radio controlled...How by hacking a cheap Zip-Zap Knock off (that I got last year @ MML for being on a loosing team in Ubisoft's GRAW Tourney....Clancy Section did have it's benefits)
I've gotta do some testing on both first. If you've got any Ideas please share them with me (and the rest of the class )

Next time the Dissection of the I-shuffle (and maybe the car)

CrazyBillyBob

[crazybillybob]

Holy Cow..... There's a R2SRV Update!!!!

Yep, It's Update time. Wife's been out of town for almost 3 weeks, so Me and R2 have spent allot of time together lately.

I started with installing the Rear door hinges, and getting them Aligned ...that took way longer then it should have!!!

With the hinges in you need something to keep the door shut... So I installed a magnetic latch.

Here's a nice view with the latch installed.

With the rear door in I got ready to install the hinges for the front panels...I got a bit ahead of my self and removed the front skins... Only to notice that I lost part of a hinge... so I've only got one hinge for the door.

I've got a few sets on order now so it ok, but there's something depressing about seeing your project go backwards.

With the hinge debacle It was time to work on something else.
As the motherboard had failed once already due to a cracked trace, I felt that the motherboard tray was probably not heavy enough for all the vibration and movement (both while driving R2 around, and in transporting him to shows). So it was time to make a new motherboard protection system. The old motherboard tray was made out of 0.062" aluminum (about 1/16) with an L bend in one end for mounting. The new "protection system" is made out of 0.152" (over 1/8") Aluminum folded into a box.
This nice sheet of Aluminum came home with me from the metal shop, all ready to protect my motherboard.

After a little run in with the Masking tape roll, and marker the Box is laid out ready to cut.

This stuff is tough to cut!! took 1.5 hours to cut this out on the scroll saw.

Now comes the fun part, bending all this up. I was going into this thinking, the last one was easy to bend I mean it's only aluminum after all. Well Even with cutting 1/2 the way through with the dremel, it was 3 hours of bending for this. My home use two sections of angle iron and a vise bending was making me wish I had a nice pan break by the end.

All you guys that have made whole cases, and mod parts with 1/8" aluminum with just a vise and some wood or metal blocks....Have my full respect now. That stuff kicked my butt, To get it into final position I tried standing on the sides of the box (mind you I'm 6'2", and clocking at 250LBS) and they still wouldn't stay. So I got out the bar clamps clamped the sides and ends in lined up so I could drill and rivet them together. After all that work, you get something like this.

Not bad to start (I think I'll weld up the seams just to clean everything up). Now to layout and cut the hole for the Motherboard I/0, a little file work, drill holes for the MB standoffs and this is what you get.

The masking tape got a little beat up in the bending process but It protected the Aluminum quit nicely. I've gotta get a fan and a couple of switches from All electronics before I can finish the enclosure. I'm also planning some nice detail elements as well. I know it doesn't look like 2 weeks worth of work, but it was. I also got some planning done on my ankles, how to attach them and how to make the middle one. As well as a new light source for my projector (remember that old Idea...Yep it's back too!)
I'm looking at the end press here I'm starting my push for MML6... So keep watching for more fun!

CrazyBillyBob