Mike's Droid R2-TNGO : conversion upgrade

January 2024
Mike has been working hard on converting one of his static two-legged droids R2-TNGO, to a three legged mobile one.

He asked me if I could fit new plugs onto his new motors & power cables for him. And also to shorten his drive chains.

Done & done.

He shared some progress pictures:

Legs and feet are on. More updates soon.

R5-D4: Update April/May 2023

I’ve been giving R5 as he hadn’t been actually moved since Birmingham at the NEC.

New Dome motor wheel:

3D printed him a new wheel, as on the previous one the retainer nut wasn’t being held well and the PLA had been stretched. So I slightly modified some of the sizes and then printed it in ABS. Fitted the nut and 'o’ring and then fitted it onto the motor shaft.

Test was on Saturday at…..

 ...April

Next up was to connect up the new receiver. This didn’t take me to long, compared to the nightmare I had trying to sort it out when at Celebration 🙄.

I didn’t need to connect power (previous TX require power), this one utilities the power from being connected by the servo leads. Jacking up the wheels meant I was able to setup the drive and steering channels, plus the extra switch ones, for the utility arm, sounds and (once I have the long enough servo lead) I’ll be able to trigger the trading card dispenser.

Trading card dispenser:

A while back, I made a new trigger control box that utilised a servo controlled relay, instead of the previous remote control. Once the servo lead arrived, I crimped on new plugs to connect up the TCD control box.

View Blog post here.

But on testing it….. I realised that it needed to have a momentary activation rather than an actual ‘switch’. So I’ve been on Radio Model Workshops website and will be ordering a single RC switch relay, which has the option of it being a momentary one. So this control box will get another upgrade when it arrives.

In the meantime, I swapped the control box back over to the remote control version and 3D printed a new box for the remote, so that it could be attached to the new rear panel I’d printed off for the new Flysky transmitter.

I drew up a button bracket, that fits into one of the rear screw hole sockets, this will be upgraded again to look better and also hold the LED in place.

May 9th

Outer foot ankle lock:

The outer foot shell needed some repair to it, so with the legs off the body, I stripped the outer foot down. The ankle locks unbolted and the ankle bolt nut (previously held in place with super glue), fell out lol. I knew I needed a better way to hold them in place. I had thought about a lock washer, but then a lightbulb 💡 moment came. I measured up and drew up a nut holder to 3D print. It would be held in place by a bolt.

Nut holder loose.

Nut holder moved into position. I applied some thread lock to help keep it in position, but only nipped it tight to allow the ankle bolt to locate through into the thread.

I’ve added the file to my Prusa page.

The wooden foot shell got cleaned up inside to allow the new glass fibre to bond properly. Good as new again.

Motor repair work - Pittman dome motor

Mike asked me if I could take a look at his dome motor as the wires had got caught and broke, right at the point of the housing. He had already taken the motor apart, it was just the brush housing that needed to come apart to gain access to the wire contacts.

I wasn’t able to look at it properly before the weekend, so took my tools with me to the Christmas event to attempt it’s repair.

It’s not pretty, but it was the best I could do. The wires are connected to ‘pressed in tabs’, so I had to use the remains of the original wire connected to them to be able to solder the broken wires back on. The short red and black wires are the original broken short parts of the wires, once connected these were trimmed off to allow the upper part of the housing to fit together.

The springs were repositioned first, behind the brush heads, and then the upper housing was reattached, whilst my middle finger held the now sprung loaded bushes, back whilst inserting the motors shaft between them……phew!

The above was learned after the third attempt at re-assembly lol.

Once reassembled, Mike tested the motor and it worked fine. Another notch added to my repair list lol.