New (old) Dome Motor with new Bracket

R5's dome motor needs a new bracket!

Dome motor upgrade. This motor is an original I had installed years ago. It’s bigger than the previous one.

Drew up a simple clamp/bracket arrangement, with captive nuts.

(Just need to find some cap head bolts the right length).

I repositioned the motor to be at the front of the body. My thinking is that the motor won’t have as greater force to overcome when moving the dome, compared to when it was at the rear of the body….

Next up was a new wheel…… again 3D printed off my design and then cut a rubber o’ring to length and glued it on.

The shaft hole is a ‘D’ shape to match and I also fitted a recessed nut in the lower diameter for the locking bolt to have something firm to lock with, so preventing the PLA from breaking.

Time will tell how strong this all is with the R5 dome on!!

Cable management & Labels - servo leads

 Sorted out wiring up the new longer servo leads from the receiver to the Main feet speed controller, the one that will operate the sound activation board and the dome motor speed controller.

Labels are your friend!

The number of times I have been thankful for labeling what goes where and the control leads for the speed controller to the receiver has to be No.1

Above picture was the start of me labeling up these leads.

The sound relay switch & the dome motor control, labeled up.

R5's new dome bearing tape

I don't know why, but after a while of using the dome, the rubber motor wheel slips and won't turn the dome. A reverse spin usually sorts this.......no idea why as the wheel is a tight fit??

But also you get kids try spinning the dome, which can be annoying as then others start doing it and R5's usually trapped so can't drive away...backup... is the 'scream' sound effect lol.

Now, this tape is the anti-slip stuff you find fitted on steps etc. It's grippy like sandpaper, but not as course, plus it comes with adhesive backing which (as you'd expect) is good sticky stuff.

And of course, it had to be Red......well, orangey red lol

I test wrapped the tape around the inside edge first and cut to length. Next up was applying to the inside edge of the bearing face.

I started and unwrapped the adhesive backing tape.

 I fed the tape/bearing around as I applied it. The wheel liked this.

And here it is all wrapped up.
Next was to trim off the excess tape. Yes I could of trimmed to size before applying, but as it was my first time using this tape, this way you can do without any issues with messing up fitting and have excess tape (on the overhang).

Trimming off the excess

And here it is finished.

I was asked if the rubber wheel will wear....it should be ok, imagine a car tyre on the road, it wears through use. This should be good as well as it grips better and there's no slippage.

R5's dome rotation upgrade 1.5

Had no free time the other weekend, so I had to wait till Monday back at work.

Due to more limited time, I was only able to work on clearance hole clearance & using my dremel, to grind down the washers that were overhanging the bearing inner diameter.

This is just to make sure that the dome motor wheel has a flat surface.

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This upgrade work involves a lot of multi-mini-projects lol. The electric upgrade, dome work, rotation/position of the lazy susan & next, the actual dome motor location and fixing.

I had thought about moving the motor to the front area of the body, so the wheel was at the top. But as I had already cut out an area, years ago in the build, for this position, I decided that here was just as good as anywhere else.

Next was how to mount it.....

I have a rear door stop on one of the vertical body struts, and it's in just the right position to mount the new motor spacer block. It will replace the original door stop at the same time. So I had to make up a new bracket for the motor/door stop, much more sturdier than the last bracket.

There was some thought in how to attach the bracket to the body frame, once the motor was attached to it, which prevented fixing it on afterwards.....lol, I don't make things easy for myself do I :D. The aluminium bracket fits to one side of the vertical internal frame, with a countersunk bolt and then a wing nut. This was the only way to secure, which was actually genius, as the wings stopped the nut from turning when the bolt was screwed into place!

Motor & bracket bolted into place.

Powered up the motor and the lazy susan ring spins great.

Update on the new lower dome metal ring to follow......

R5's dome rotation upgrade 1.3 + (Banebot wheels)

Managed to do some more work on the new dome ring at the weekend.
Lots of thinking, marking, drilling......then re-thinking, bit more marking and yep....more drilling lol. Customising something to fit something else can be a pain the the a$$ lol.

Marked up the bearing on the dome, for it's screw positions. Then made up two blocks that are screwed behind the new ring to add strength to the location points.

The 'A' is the location point to be drilled.
And here's the hole and the opening to accept the nylock nut which holds the screw onto the bearing race.

I had to make two of these as the third hole goes into one of the frame uprights.

ring positioned and testing length of new securing bolts

This fit's great on the dome and the body.

But because the dome location holes were made 0.5mm bigger, there's slight movement. This may be rectified once the metal skin is added. But may need to add additional location bolt uprights. So far so good tho :)

Another plus was that my new dome motor wheels arrived.

Banebot 'blue' & 'orange' wheels, different hardness's. I wanted two blue ones as they have become as rare as Unicorn poo! But I literally had the last one in stock, so had to get the orange one. This wasn't a problem as the softer rubber may be better at gripping the lazy susan bearings inner ring.

Instagram picture of the wheels.

R5's dome rotation upgrade 1.2

Went to my local Wicke's store, material suppliers for Trade and people in the know lol. Cheaper prices than B&Q for example (UK).

Picked up a sheet of 9mm thick hardboard and got it home for measuring, marking and cutting.

 The original base ring from the dome. Measured it up for marking new wood ring.

Diameters marked up and started cutting with jigsaw. Once cut came the 'test fitting' with it sat on the dome internal uprights. With the bearing sat on top.

I then marked up an inner circle that would allow the dome wheel to not make contact with the wood circle. This next pic also shows crews taped in place so I could line up the dome to sit centrally on R5's body.

And here's the test positioning picture, pre any holes being drilled.

After this was spent digging out washers for spacers, counter sunk bolts for the bearing etc. Which I found but weren't long enough, so these were ordered.

And here's the work so far. Picture taken for my Instagram 'james_r5d4'.

R5's dome rotation upgrade 1.1

So Saturday afternoon I spent working out how I was going to fit the new bearing. I had planned to router out the original lower ring, but the bearing was the same size as the outside edge of it. The skin makes up the rest of the diameter to the correct size.

So that put a stop to that idea lol.
Next was to simply buy a thinner piece of hardboard and it plus the 10mm thick bearing would equal the right height again.

Whilst I was doing all this thinking/planning, I started to remove the old lazy susan & electrics that wouldn't be needed.

This was a great idea for a cheap and easy way to control R5's dome rotation, and has served me well. But it's replacement will same on space and all this wiring!

I also uninstalled my old & original, RC transmitters receiver unit. I had kept in, just incase I needed to swap it back over, but it wasn't necessary. It was replaced by a screen used version from a fellow club member, much thanks go to Colin Barker for his generous gift.

Old Rc receiver unit

Sunday was when I was able to get on with some REAL work.....

R5's dome rotation upgrade 1.0

I started to unscrew the lower base plate, and then remembered that the skin was pinned & so as much as I didn't want to do more work than I needed to, it meant that it had to be taken off.

Started by cutting the silver tape round the edge, then started to pry off the outer skin.

 

Here you can see the panel pin, that held the skin on.

And here it is removed.

Saturday I picked up from the Post Office, my new 'lazy susan/rockler style' bearing. Wasn't expecting it to have steel bearing in tho.....

R5's planned dome rotation upgrade 2017

The plan is to fit a lazy susan bearing, replacing the small central one. R5's dome wobbling days may soon be over. This will be a budget bearing race due to cost, but have read that these can be upgraded with some work to improve them, we'll see.

This is a BIG undertaking, as this was never considered as a do-able thing, due to the cost of the 'standard' Rockler bearings, used by R2 Builders (and the additional import costs). 

But I've come to the conclusion that it is needed :(. This may mean a new way to power its movement by wheel as the Bane Bot wheel was no longer available from the UK supplier I'd previously bought it from (update: I've now found another supplier). It will mean a new position of the motor/wheel assembly to power the lazy susan.

Next up is a 'SyRen 10'. Found one on eBay for £40, bargin!

So am waiting for the lazy susan, and SyRen speed controller, before I can carry on with dome rotation system upgrade work, both should be here by the end of this week.

Upgrade work on Dome rotation system 1.1

So the original grub screw fitted was small, about M3 size. The collar unit is made from aluminium, which is fine but you couldn't apply much force to lock the grub screw into place as the Allen key hex would slip in the hex socket! This was the reason for the Dome issues I had on Saturday at Corsham!

So, I found some M5 grub screws, drilled through and re-tapped the new holes to M5 size. I filled the end of the grub screw flat and to a depth that once fitted in the collar, it was flush with the hexagon face. Then when the wheel is fitted onto the hexagon, it acts as a stop if the grub screw tries to uncrew or be forced out by the motor shaft rotating.

I said 'some' grub screws, as I tapped the new collar holes right through.

Plan 1: a second grub srew can be secured on the opposite side, with the addition of maybe a location hole in the rear face of the shaft.

Plan 2: If the original upgrade doesn't work and Plan 1 is no better, then I can drill and pin the collar to the shaft.

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The next upgrade was the rotating ring that the motor wheel runs against. When I had originally cut this out it was far from a perfect circle. At the time, I thought this wouldn't be a problem, thinking the motor/wheel assembly would be sprung loaded, as per 'the norm'.

But this caused slipping issues with the motor wheel, being fixed (although the bracket has some spring) it wasnt helping with opposite direction movement.

So I took the ring still attached to the lazy susan, into work and once fixed, slowley rotated it to get the outside edge cylindrical and concentric to the lazy susan. Half hour later, job done.

And fitted with rubber strip for more grip.

On re-fitting the motor, I found it was now to high?? When the dome was rotating and the body in 3 leg mode, the wheel would catch on the underside of his dome. So I added a spacer to drop the motor bracket down. This has solved the problem.

Upgrade work needed on Dome rotation system 1.0

Yesterday I had to temporarily 'fix' the dome motor's socket to shaft grub screw. It screws through and secures onto a flat thats pre machined onto the shaft. When I first fitted this I was NOT happy at the small size of the grub screw and when tightening it the allen key would slip in the hex socket when being tightened up.

Well yesterday, it slipped under the strain/weight of R5's dome. At first I thought it was an electrical issue until I removed the dome to see the motor shaft still spinning, just not the wheel!

So my plan is to drill and tap a larger thread and use a larger grub screw with a flatter face for contact with the shafts flat. I'll also apply some thread lock to it too.

R5D4 - prep'ed ready for transportation

Spent two hours re-installing all of R5's electrical boards, sound system board and then testing it all.

This was the first time he was all together, dome on, lights on, sound on!

The sound system was loud! Which is a good thing as you forget that when testing in your garage or at home, (though not at half past 12 at night! lol). You normally DON'T have any loud background noise. But at event's, this increases dramatically. So to be on the safe side, I tested the amp on full power by flipping the two dip switches.......now THAT's LOUD!!! :D

Dome electrics - power connection

As I'm still waiting for parts, I didnt want to be left waiting to be able to power the dome motor. So I rigged up a stand alone unit, with voltage step down power.

The two micro-swtiches mounted with the micro servo.

Digital Volt meter with Voltage Regulator below it.

The unit takes its power from a split connection plug straight off the 24 volt line. This feeds into the voltage step down unit and is monitored by a digital volt meter. This then feeds the dome motor.

There was an issue with the servo not working(?) The transmitter was working, but the servo only twitched when activated??

.......ordered another servo......fingers crossed!

Dome Motor's 6volt battery holder

02.02.15
Was thinking the other night, after testing R5's dome motor, that I needed to securely mount the 6 volt battery that will power it. So I drew round it on some 6mm thick spare MDF and then cut out the middle. I then cut some dowel up into lengths and push fitted these into the larger base. The top ring is then held in place with small screws.

17.02.15 **UPDATE** This is so the battery will slot into it.

This is possibly only temporary, once the electrical upgrades (step down voltage units) come into effect.

R5-D4's Dome control syatem 1.3 - COMPLETED

Braved the cold of my garage Saturday afternoon, to install R5's dome switch unit. Basically a servo linked up to swith two micro switches to power dome motor left/off/right.
Fitted the board to the inside upright and all plugged in. Just need to sort the batteries plug so its charger can plug into it to be charged.

Have been happy since sorting the switches out and that it would actually work, but to finally install the switch panel in and test R5's dome properly, with the transmitter, felt like I had actually achieved the basic level of completing An Astromech. That being 'full motorisation, feet and dome' :)

R5-D4's Dome control system 1.2

Back in November @ Collectormania 22. I saw Owen's R2, a fellow UK R2 Club member, who has a similar control system to Victors, but his has a linkage system to his micro switches, this I like.

Soldered up the wires to the two micro switches, and heat shrunk the contacts. This includes wires to connect up with the 'test' power, which is a 6V battery.

I tested the motor on one of the 12V batteries and to me it seamed to fast for my liking, where as the 6V gave a more movie style movement. This is a personal choice, which kind of goes with the sad R5 feel from the film.

All wired up and tested and YES, the micro switch idea works (more excited my soldering works lol)

January 2015
What with Xmas and being ill, I've not had a chance to get on with any R5 work.....until one night last week. I wired up the servo and tested out the idea of it switching the micro switches, using the transmitter. In principle it worked lol.

Saturday 17th - Fitting of R5's dome motor!
The idea was to fit the motor with a pivot point and spring tension. But I found that the metal bracket has enough 'flex' in it not to need the spring. The rotating disc is not perfectly round lol, so I found the smallest part of its diameter and screwed the bracket into place. There was a bit of movement from the bracket when the motor moves, but the flex is okay.

This next pic you can see the screws in place.

This pic shows the limited space.

You can see the inside of the dome structure also.

R5-D4's Dome control system 1.1

Ordered my Dome motor the other week.

Along with a BaneBots wheel and the adaptors, required to combine forces.

The motor I ordered from Maplins, the wheel and adaptor I ordered from Technobot

(low stock levels)

Spent a few hours working on how best to fit it.