Took a break today from sanding. I did some more test fitting, but I’m really trying to build up the courage to drill some holes in the dome.

Decide instead to review movie footage and reference pictures on what dome color scheme and panel layout I wanted to use. I’ve seen a lot of fan made R2’s which can vary widely both in quality and paint schemes, and there’s a lot of pictures of them out there – but not many of a real R2. The best collection is in the Gallery section on Astromech.net, but for some strange reason the photographers seem to miss his left side. I wish someone had a full set of 360 degree high-res photos . I guess it’s a good job we have the DVDs for reference.

One of my favorite sets of photos of a fan made dome is from Mike Marosy. He’s gone for a very clean look, and has a nice set of 360 degree photos of his dome.

The real R2’s finish is not perfect by any stretch of the imagination, and as many people know there’s quite a variety in paint schemes due to different domes used from movie to movie, or even scene to scene. Parts fall off during filming too e.g. toward the beginning of ANH it looks like he’s missing a back left panel when on the Death Star and Tatooine, and in other movies panels can go from blue to unpainted or flip color on the rear PSI frame/center. Another variation is the holoprojector housing being painted or not. The list goes on.

I’ve been making replica props long enough to know that there is no way I can be movie accurate because of all the variations. So, right now I think I’m going to go mostly ANH/ESB without painting the holoprojectors. I’m going to make it so they’re easily removed anyway so I can always paint them later.

Today I also tried to mark out some of the holes and build up the courage to cut them, but during the taking the domes parts countless times I then decided I should do some more sanding/polishing to reduce gaps before I do that.

By that time it was too late into the night and I didn’t want to keep the neighbors awake, so opted to wait till tomorrow.

As I said in my post last night I was able to start on fitting the two domes together.

I’d already read about Victor’s problems on fitting his domes. From his photos I don’t think mine were as bad but I definitely had gaps. You can’t see much once the domes are on top of each other so I had to spin the outer dome around and peek thru the top holoprojector hole and check spacing.

I did some light sanding but things we’re changing much, so being the impatient person I am I decided to use a power sander and give the top of the inner dome a once over to try and remove some of the waves/lines. Fit was much much better and I decided to remove the pie panels and see how far I needed to go.

I’d already read Jerry’s tutorial over at Astromech.net so rather than repeat too much stuff here. I’d strongly recommend reading it if you’re just starting on your R&J Dome.
I “crafted” a mini saw out of a cheap/small hacksaw blade with some duct-tape wrapped around it. I didn’t want to use a standard hacksaw blade as they looked too big and the recommendation was to use an Xacto-hacksaw which I couldn’t find locally. So my make-shift mini-saw did the trick.

Here’s the top of the dome all cut out.

The only place there was any significant gaps where at the bottom of the pie wedges. Not huge I know and I’m thinking I may not even need to do much more once I factor in the glue that will be holding things together. However if I decide to use hinges then I may need to tweak the gap some.

So the plan today is to do some additional fitting and checking the other panels. I know there’s space behind some and I also need to clean up areas of the inner dome that will be exposed thru the outer.

Maybe I’ll even get to cutting some holes today.

As always more pictures in the Dome Album.

Just got the PSI Blinker Units from Fiber Optic Products.

This is somewhat of a warning, and time saver to others to get the right thing the first time. If you’ve ever tried to use their website you’ll understand my frustration and confusion. And their return policy is a nightmare to read. They’re email address also doesn’t work and they never answer the phone.

I’d ordered the Dual LED Blinker Unit based on recommendations on the Builders Forum

There’s two reasons I’m disappointed, 1) the flash/blink is not very accurate at all, and 2) the description reads like the flash rate was adjustable – but they’re not. Here’s the text from the website –

“The New R2D2 Unit will flash the Red Long, Blue Short, or Yellow Long, Green Short. The Duel-2 unit has adjustable speed for each LED. Please select color choice. DO NOT turn pot full or you will burn out unit!”

They have another well hidden page that’s the New Dual-2.

I know I know, they say that in the text for the Dual but it sounded like that’s what I was ordering.

Boards look identical BTW – just a variable resistors/pots in two spots instead of a fix resistor, so I may try and swap them out if I can’t return them.

The only saving thing was that they’re were only $8.50 a piece.

I really should have just waited for the next PSI run from Dan.

Summary for December 2006

• Please Mind the Gap – more dome work
• Dome Update – Finally working on something
• Rear Logic – 24v wows
• Front Logic Kit Arrives
• Vex Robotic Kit – got this to play with and see if it can run Artoo
• Got my dome today – now I can start building for real
• Periscope Kit Arrives
• Front Logic Electronics Ordered

Tonight has been a night of gaps, both good and bad.

It’s New Years Eve and what have I been doing? Sanding Aluminum for the last 4 hours in a cold garage.

The good news is that I was able to get the inner dome to fit over the dome ring tonight with the correct gap at the bottom.

All it took was lots of Dremel work with the mini sanding disks. I bought a new box of 60 grit drums for the Dremel and they seemed to last a bit longer than the one’s that come in the original kit. I did try the grinding disk attachment too, but it was slow going and it seems to be polishing more than removing stuff, so I gave up and went back to the sandpaper drums.

I had considered running the dome against my bench sander, but decided not to after a small slip and I touched a shiny part of the ring that really didn’t need sanding. No biggy and lesson learned.

I continued to sand, test fit, rotate and mark spots that were touching, followed by more sanding, test fits, rotate …. repeat for 2 hours.

I’d been working so intently on the inner dome I’d clean forgot to check the fit with the outer dome attached. What I’d forgotten was that the inner dome is not as deep as the outer and sits up in the outer dome a bit. So I really didn’t need to get the inner dome to go all the way down on the lip. Luckily I stopped sanding the ring in time and a quick check showed that I was very close to the correct gap at the bottom when I had the two domes and the ring together. But I did panic for a moment.

On the last lap around the ring I ran a hand electric sander around with some 100 grit paper. Both inside the dome and the ring. It smoothed things out and was the last step needed to get things to snuggly fit together. I may go back and polish it later.

I’d also made a start on sanding the inner dome and test fitting it with the outer. I even went as far as removing some of the pie panels, but I’ll blog about it tomorrow and post some pictures.

I finally got my hands dirty for real today. Made a start on fitting the inner dome to the ring.

The R&J Domes are great and for the outer dome not much work is needed as all the hard work of marking/cutting has already been done by laser. However, as some of you may know the inner dome and ring need some work. I think everyone I’ve spoken to has had to tweak, cajole and/or modify the inner dome to fit the outer dome snuggly, and for some, myself included, trying to get the inner dome to fit over the dome ring can be an issue too. All this is due to the the variable nature of the manufacturing process of spinning the domes – or so I’m told. Plus the thickness of the wall on the ring varied.

I got my Dremel out and tackled fitting the ring to the dome. I’d read a lot on the builders forum as well as various builders blogs, but nobody seems to agree on the best way forward. Some suggested in no particular order –

• Cut the ring lip down in height and sand to a point until the dome fits.
• Simply sand the inside of the dome AND the ring lip.
• Take it to a machine show to get them to do it.
• Cut slots in the ring and tweak/bend it to make it smaller so the dome fits over.
• Heat dome up in hot water, cool down ring in ice – resulting in a change in size and easier fitting.

Someone also recommend that I do not cut the ring lip down in size as it may cause problems further down the road.

Well I chose option 2 for now, as it seemed the easiest and least destructive – and I was able to at least get the dome to fit over the ring proper. It doesn’t go down all the way yet, but it’s a good start and I’m relieved that it looks like this method may work.

I just took my Dremel and slowly went around both the ring and the inside of the inner dome. I focused more on the ring as it’s thicker and had some spots where it was obvious where I could remove more material.

More photos in the gallery.

That’s it for now. I’ll probably finish this up tomorrow with a bit of luck and can start fitting the outer dome.

I also got a chance to work/think on the rear logic display some today.

Here’s a quick picture. Again I was lucky to pick this up pre-assembled (thanks Tom).

It works great and once I put it in the dome this will help bring R2 to life.

It’s not as fancy or as elegant as the front logic displays. There’s 108 LEDs on a bread-board sequenced by a PIC Flasher. The PIC requires 9 volts, and the LEDs 24 volts. So it requires multiple connections and difference batteries.

My original plan for the dome was to have a self contained rechargeable power source, preferably 12 volt. But the 24 volt requirement throws a spanner in the works.

It would be great if I could up-convert the 12v to 24v. It can be done I’m told by some friends who know a lot more than me, but it maybe expensive or wasteful on the battery. So I need to figure out the power requirements of the LEDs and calculate the size of the DC to DC
converter.

The simple solution would be to have 2 x 12v batteries in series in the dome, but again I’d rather avoid the extra weight.

Front logic electronics arrived today. What a cool thing these are – the wife wasn’t as easily impressed as me though.
I was lucky that the boards I ordered came pre-assembled so I avoided soldering 80 tiny LED into a super small space.
They also came with Damien black bezels – yet another great product.

One gotcha that caught me when wiring up the red connectors provided, don’t wire up based on the numbers on the connectors. Follow the tutorial as the boards pin outs are the opposite. My heart sank for a moment, but I soon realized what I’d done.