Since the previous post back in January, a lot has happened. Most obviously, of course, is the COVID-19 pandemic, social distancing, and lockdown. Sadly, many have suffered unemployment. I am fortunate enough that my employer is considered an essential business, so I’m still working — even working from home to some extent.
LCTC has been postponed twice from the original late March date and is presently scheduled for mid June. It may be postponed further or cancelled entirely.
Dragon Con hasn’t announced any changes yet, but we all think it is very likely that it will be cancelled for this year … 85000 people in close quarters with a potentially fatal disease running around that can be spread by asymptomatic people, has no vaccine, and has an uncertain post-recovery immunity period is … not a good idea.
What this means for me is that I should have more time to get some droid building done (hah), and less expenses (no need to rent a vehicle for our group this year, plus potential hotel/badge refunds — or postponement until the following year — and lots of money saved on food and dealer’s room stuff.)
Robot Roll Call…
Let’s check in on the droids. First up, those that have had minimal or no changes:
P-1P and BBL-BBQ have had no real changes. In fact, BBL-BBQ is currently living in a closet until I figure out how to handle power, propulsion, and steering.
Artie Deco is still dismantled and awaits rewiring. I should really get on that so I can get his core module out from underfoot.
I did take the opportunity to experiment with printing Treadwell’s lenses in clear resin on my Elegoo Mars. The results were very promising. A bit more polish and the resulting part would likely be perfect.
BB-5M
BB-5M has had the most changes. I finally finished dismantling his sphere. All that I need to proceed with that is some sanding, priming, and an FDM printer that works.
I fixed the loose connection in his neck LEDs and built the first iteration of his proper logic displays.
I am also part of a group working on upgrades to the magnetic coupler (which will make my Quad Magnet Mount obsolete). The new design is based on the Halo head mech system, which is used on the full sized BB units. It has been scaled down to fit the Spin Master Hero Droid dome designs that I have access to (my BB-5M and Seth Kelly’s NR-S3 Nurse Droid).
I’ve also built a small PVC stand to hold the droid, because the cardboard part from his original packaging that I had been using was starting to fall apart.
R2 Unit
As of April 22th, my R2 build has officially begun: I now have multiple parts to rub together.
So I did.
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I ordered a Granite Earth lazy susan bearing, and cleaned it up a bit, though I’m waiting for doing the full polishing.
Speaking of the R2 build, the shortage of laser-cut plastic domes (almost two years and counting) has lead me toward deciding to go with Michael Baddeley’s 3D printed dome. That would be exceedingly annoying in my Maker Select v2’s 200 x 200 x 150 build volume even if the printer were currently working reliably. It is not. I do have the parts to upgrade it, but no room to actually work on it (thanks to the control board being permanently fixed to the printer).
The lack of a functional FDM machine has been impeding my progress for a good eight months (the DMM parts shown above are the sole print I’ve gotten out of it since I completed BB-5M’s dome cap). So I have elected to order a new printer. A CR-10 S5 would’ve been nice (because it can print the entire R2 dome or large chunks of the body in a single go), but it was a bit pricey. Besides, the CR-10 line is kind of like an overgrown version of the Maker Select, with a downgrade to a bowden extruder. Instead I went with an Anycubic Chiron.
I’ve also got my Logic Displays, and will be adding the PSIs as soon as the next wave is approved. The logics have been tested but not assembled. I’m waiting on that until I have enough of a dome to test a part in.
See, shortly after ordering the logics, I randomly landed back on this page, which describes the differences in screen-used droids. I noticed the section about the original Rear Logic Display mentioned that it was curved (most club RLDs are flat).
A few builders have done a curved RLD, and I think I’ll be doing that as well. But I can’t really test my design without a dome, and I don’t want to go through the trouble of assembling (fibering) the RLD until I have something to attach it to.
Other Builds
I may eventually add yet another droid to the list. Some of Luke Fisher’s concept art for D-O was tweeted out. I like this one, and might eventually build it:
Who Ya Gonna Call?
Another printing project I did was the lens barrels for my Ecto goggles. They still needed clean up in this photo, but I think they came out pretty nice.
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I’m not shooting for screen accuracy with these things (they are based on cheap Harbor Freight welding goggles painted olive drab, after all), but I did want something better than the PVC pipe fitting version.
(The orange thing is my prototype BB-5M pip for my Revvek Droid Builder name badge.)
Tilting at Windmills
I can’t recall if I mentioned that I go in on the Tilt Five (AR headset) kickstarter. The pandemic slowed things a little, but our thinking is that units will still be coming this year. The SDK was just released, and beta units meant to go out in February are apparently about to start shipping.
So you might start seeing me posing content about my experiments with that. And I think that brings us reasonably up-to-date.
dyne3d 