Event - Leamington Spa Wars 2017

This Saturday, December 2nd,

the UK Builders Club are head up to Leamington Spa, for......

link to the website: Spa Wars

R4-D4 Dome work progress 2.8

3D printed parts.
There is seen in some screen grabs that some of the R4's have electronic panels, two off, one either side. There are lots of different version, probably linked to different 'models'. So I thought I'd create my own.

I wasn't sure whether to just recess these component's into the panel, or recess the whole panel, to the depth of the groove, and fix these on then. The upper panel, in the picture below is the one in question.

Well.....that undecidedness didn't last long. I drew up a full components panel in Inventor

..........and 3D printed it off, twice.

I then recessed the whole panel, using a stanley knife blade to 'scrape' off the layers.

and then I test fitted the new 3D printed one.

Am still a bit unsure with how proud the panel is, but I can't recess it any more, due to the wood only being 3mm thick. So I may reduce the height of components on it.....but then they'll become less defined.....

I'm looking into LED's and or fiber optic cable that I have left over from the R0-D4 dome build.

Other work..... I almost finished grooving out all the panels last night.

I just have one last curved panel to do.

R4-D4 Dome work progress 2.7

This weekend has been all about the 70's lol......grooving! 😂

Friday night I carried on grooving the dome lid.

The grooving tool I used, all done by hand, just like on R5-D4's dome and body.

And then I applied PVA wash over the grooves to help seal. Once dried, I lightly sanded.

Saturday I had some free time so was able to make a start on scoring and grooving the panels I had previously marked up.

 First panel above started.

Marking up the curved panels curved recesses.
I used a tape to mark the drop from the top to the lines. I then followed a line from side to side.

The scoring with the blade along the lines.....free hand! 

Quick wash with PVA glue, so that by time I've finished grooving, I can start sanding

And this was the final effort.
I'll be starting on the other panels, marking out etc this week.

R4-D4 Dome work progress 2.6

Some good news and some not so good news.

My 4 pack of fake CCTV dome camera's arrived yesterday. And spent no time stripping two of them apart lol. That was all I could do as the Radar Eye was in work. The other plus is the on/off loop relay unit arrived as well.

The not so good part of the night, was spending hours figuring out how to and the best way to wire up what I had to operate the holo projector circuit 😒
What I have won't do what I want.....so onto plan 'B'......

~~~

To not get distracted with this disappointing evening, tho some bits were actually fun when bits worked, today's efferts are working on the Radar Eye & it's lens.

I taped a piece of paper onto the dome as to where the Radar Eye will go. This was to stop it messing up my nice clean surface lol. I then mixed up some glass fiber and applied it to one side of the eye's cardboard'd edge.

Lunchtime, I got on with cutting the radar eye's lens. I marked in position and then using a saw, cut to size.

 

After this I applied glass fiber resin to the other side edge of the radar eye, as the first side had set, as seen in the above pic.

~~~

Marking and grooving out the panels....

There are a few different 'styles' for the panels on an R4. The paint/colour design is another thing too. So I'm going with a standard'ish design.

I started with the 'lid' panel.

Drew on the groove details and then scored and scrapped out the groove detail.

I gave the groove a PVA wash to seal, and then once dried I lightly sanded them.

As the hardboard is only 3mm thick, the grooves are only about a 1mm deep. They are just for effect.

I drew up some templates in cardboard and cut them out. I then started to mark up the panels at the top of the dome.

I'll be taking the dome home again for the weekend, hopefully get some more work done on it then.

Looking forward to Sunday tho as a few members of the UK Builders are coming round to my house.....more info next week.

R4-D4 Dome work progress 2.5

So yesterday I re-designed the servo panel and sent it to the printer. Four hours plus later, it finished....just in time for me to leave work.

Once home, I removed the raft & supports. There wasn't much cleaning up needed.

Later I then test fitted the components & whilst I had some free time, connected up what I could.

It may look complicated, but I don't do complicated lol, all 'plug-n-play' here.....with a bit of splicing of the digital volt meter to be soldered to the output pin connectors of the voltage regulator unit. The bottom two red wires are to the momentary switch I used for testing. This you can see in the picture below.

Here's a quick video.