Norwegian R2

2012-02-23T15:46:00.002+01:00

The blue colour used in Star Wars - A New Hope revealed?

2012-02-18T01:16:00.003+01:00

Did they indeed use Dykem Layout Fluid for R2's blue parts back in 1976? Everything points in that direction...

to be continued...

Assembling my Teeces v3 lighting system

2012-02-08T16:00:00.001+01:00

So far, si good!! Now I just need to solder up the PSIs and Holo LEDs and start to troubleshoot the code and wires...

Slip Ring is in!

2012-01-26T23:43:00.001+01:00

This fabulous piece of kit arrived from BobC today. I'm a lazy git and not too comfortable with the soldering iron (yet, I hope), so I got the assembled version.

Hug!

2012-01-25T21:59:00.001+01:00

For my tweezer finger center foot action I received a hug :D

It stands!

2012-01-25T21:57:00.001+01:00

- Thats what she said, eh? Lolz. FINALLY he is standing on his own. Yay!!

Center ankle arrives!

2012-01-25T21:53:00.001+01:00

With the ankle finally here it was time for R2 to get his feet on and stand on his own three legs. An easy fix - at least so I thought... Mounting that center foot was a PAIN!! Luckily I have tiny hands!

Parts parts parts!

2012-01-09T23:35:00.000+01:00

I never get tired og looking into this box - look sir, droidparts!! :D

Power couplers arrive!

2011-12-19T19:46:00.001+01:00

Russ has done it again! Amazing work at a very reasonable price - this time I even got the infamous page 3 wrapping! :D Way to go mate!

Imperial Cog + Astromech dome = NERD PATCH!

2011-12-09T11:00:00.001+01:00

The patches I designed have started to materialize! Order here

Periscope

2011-10-26T21:36:00.001+02:00

Today I received and assembled the periscope and riser. The attention to detail is fantastic!! No instructions with the parts, but a look at som reference photos and a second look at the parts made it close to impossible to go wrong.

Legs are back on!

2011-10-19T23:23:00.001+02:00

Looking good! Can't wait til the feet and center ankle arrive from Jerry...

A little side project!

2011-10-13T00:17:00.001+02:00

While waiting for more droidparts to arrive I thought I'd start on the Sandtroopers pride and joy - the T21 BFG. I'm copying most of Pandatrooper's build found over at mepd.net, but plan to use a fuel line for the ribbed section and a copper brake line for the smaller tube bit (from ribbed section to sight).

Parts, parts, parts!!

2011-10-04T22:12:00.001+02:00

Last addition to this rapidly growing pile of awesome: DD dome accessory lifter, Bob's FANTASTIC milled aluminium Holoprojectors and bronze braided hose from Mike V - all arrived the same day :D

New workshop assistant

2011-09-23T20:26:00.000+02:00

Halloween is a month away and my daughter needs a costume - perfect!! Just the excuse I needed to whip out the sewing machine :D

Where to put the volume knob?

2011-09-14T13:43:00.001+02:00

James has lightened the Com8a frame by making some large holes in the frame rings - they fit the Sure volumeknob perfectly!

Some extra oomph to the tweet

2011-09-14T13:41:00.001+02:00

Today I made some plexiglass brackets to hold the extra side vent speakers in place. They bring some much needed punch!

Interesting dome drive

2011-09-09T23:31:00.001+02:00

This Jawa has got something I want - something that isn't a rockler bearing! :D

Utility arm clearance

2011-09-08T18:57:00.001+02:00

As all builders know the current utility arms do not clear the skins. Filing away at the skin changes the shape of the opening and thus the visual design - a cardinal sin in my eyes! It might be the easiest way, but dont do it!! Instead get an electric file and make an extra angle on the inner part if the arm. That way it retains the shape/look when closed.

Be geek or don't, there is no try

2011-09-06T23:16:00.001+02:00

Norwegian Astromech Builders patches have arrived - nerd-o-rama!! (thanks Tom!!)

Having a nerdgasm watching my Han in carboPhone? The file is available in my gallery over at astromech.net. Send it to skinit.com and Roberts your mothers brother.

Sexy legs!

2011-09-06T15:23:00.001+02:00

Again, thank you Guy! These booster covers are perfection! I also mounted the new two-piece ankle details. The screws for these was a bit on the generous side, but nothing a washer won't fix :D

Booster covers arrived!

2011-09-06T15:20:00.000+02:00

Awesome!! Thanks to the meticulous work of Jerry and Guy we now have legs and booster covers that both fit like a glove and have a weight that is very tolerable. Thanks Guy(s)!!

Skin snaps contd 2

2011-09-06T13:22:00.000+02:00

Here's the top snap. The secret is to have one of the three snaps mounted to the opposite side as the two others (over/underneath the frame rings) That way you eliminate any vertical travel as well as help guiding the snaps into position when fixing the skins.

Skin snaps with the Com8A frame

2011-09-06T13:09:00.000+02:00

Here's how I have mounted my skins using Daren's skin snaps and a pair of James' mounting blocks. My frame has a built in LDP, so it's a tight fit but the snaps still work like a charm.

Skin snaps contd.

2011-09-06T12:15:00.000+02:00

Here's the middle snap - mounted to the underside of James' mounting block.

Norwegian Astromech Builders Patch

2011-08-26T08:55:00.000+02:00

Coming soon! Thanks to Tom (TeamTEOR) for all help with turning my Illustratorfiddelydoo into embroidered nerdgasms :D

Cutting rear skins to fit 3/4 Com8A door

2011-08-25T18:53:00.000+02:00

Here's how I decided to cut the rear skins. A centered symmetric hole. The door is off center but I wanted a symmetric look.

A rare glimpse of one of the evil forest droids from planet Kashyyyk!

2011-07-29T22:43:00.000+02:00

Hahaha! I stuck the Logics in a bush the other night :D

Arduino logics - Teeces v2

2011-07-24T17:40:00.001+02:00

Yay! I did it!! I'm a total n00b when it comes to electronics and soldering, but after a bit of practice these came together without any hiccups. Anyone can do these. Now I'm just waiting for Teeces v3 boards to be released :D

Thank you Teeces and Joymonkey for your excellent work and help!!

Complete sound system

2011-07-20T10:04:00.000+02:00

And here it is - boxes and all. The Sure 2x100w amp is fantastic! Bring on the imperial march :D

Sound system - speaker boxes part 4

2011-07-20T09:59:00.000+02:00

Here's the center vent speakers with the new boxes. Sound quality has improved. A lot!

Sound system - speaker boxes part 3

2011-07-20T00:24:00.001+02:00

I'm also making speaker boxes for the front Polk speakers (mounted onto the Com8 speaker plate - located behind the center vents) These tiny 3,5inch speakers are very good but really need to be enclosed for the sound to be right. The difference us very noticeable. Try it!

Sound system - speaker boxes part 4

2011-07-20T00:20:00.001+02:00

Here's a pic of the assembled box. Nice!

Sound system - speaker boxes

2011-07-20T00:19:00.000+02:00

I found some other, bigger speakers that I might use behind R2s side vents. As many of you know speakers need to be in some kind of case to improve sound quality. I found some pieces of white plastic air duct piping thingies aswell as a 2mm white plastic cutting mat. Cut a little here, glue a little there and Robert's your mother's brother...

Utility arms!

2011-07-19T17:23:00.000+02:00

Finally the Norwegian Post managed to forward my mail to our summer house. Today these beauties arrived from the UK. Thanks Russ!!

Radar eye mock up

2011-06-30T01:39:00.001+02:00

Well, there you go - R2 can see!! I've attached it using magnets. That way I can easily move it around in my quest for the right spot.

Audio system

2011-06-28T23:51:00.000+02:00

Polk speakers and Sure 100w amp. This makes some serious noise! I chose this amp because it has an optional volume knob enabling you to easily adjust the volume (smaller Sure amps only has a few settings - fiddly miniswitches on the board, yuk!)

YES!! "A linch pin droid" by Kevin Tong has arrived

2011-06-20T19:56:00.002+02:00

I managed to get print no 345/400. It is stunning! They surface on eBay every now and then. Get one. Just get one.

Dome bearing - just had an idea....

2011-06-20T09:28:00.002+02:00

How a bout something like this? Should work in theory. Magnets alone do wobble, but the center shaft and bearing should eliminate any horizontal movement as well as take care of any wobble? The magnets support the weight of the dome and provide travel free from noise and friction...thoughts?

Dome rotation via RC - it works!

2011-06-16T08:34:00.000+02:00

Pittman surplus motor from skycraft + Syren 10 motorcontroller + Spektrum AR8000 receiver + Spektrum DX8 transmitter = Success!!

Dome movement via RC!

2011-06-08T00:24:00.000+02:00

This was a huge milestone for me - being severly electronically challenged. However, I managed to hook up all the wires correctly and it all worked on my first try! Motor: pittman Motor controller: Syren 10

Starting to look like a droid

2011-06-08T00:18:00.001+02:00

Come feet, skirt and center ankle!! Apart from that all the "big" parts are present, yay!

Fitting horseshoes

2011-06-08T00:16:00.001+02:00

In order to fit the horseshoes I needed to file away some material from the leg-to-body screw holes. Dremel away!

Sexy legs!

2011-06-07T21:20:00.000+02:00

Got the legs from Jerry today. Yippee! Need to mod them a bit to fit the horseshoes, but nothing severe. JAG parts are fantastic and well worth the wait!

Shine-o-rama!

2011-06-01T23:18:00.000+02:00

Ok, I'm hooked on dome polish. This is SO addictive! :D

New transmitter!

2011-05-31T19:29:00.000+02:00

I got this 8ch beast today. A whole different ballgame than the 2ch car transmitters I used as a kid. Now - what does it do?? Lol :D

Got shine?

2011-05-29T15:28:00.000+02:00

It's so hard to stop, haha!! I put a buffing wheel on my drill, and an hour later this is how it looks. Autosol is THE shit! Check my older posts for pics of the dome before the blingaling treatment.

Chitty chitty dome shine

2011-05-28T19:27:00.000+02:00

Autosol is the shit! Perfect shinybutnotmirror finish.

New house, new workshop!

2011-05-28T19:23:00.000+02:00

My new droid!

2011-05-14T00:43:00.000+02:00

Haha! Got this Astrosuck Droid to help me hoover up the rest of the powdered clay. Soon it will all be gone, at last!!

Aaargh!! Home makeover hell

2011-05-11T14:45:00.000+02:00

My droid is neglected atm due to some dickhead's idea of insulating my house with powdered clay back in the thirties. There's tons of the stuff. Tons :(

Got dome drive!

2011-05-10T19:32:00.000+02:00

A couple of days ago I finally got a couple of Pittman motors (thanks for helping Brett!) along with another one of James' aluminium masterpieces - the Com8 motor bracket, yay! Thank you Geir for forwarding the parts ;)

Test fitting center vents

2011-04-09T23:51:00.000+02:00

Center Vents done

2011-04-09T23:13:00.000+02:00

The lower vent needed a lot of filing, but after some gentle persuasion, some tears and a bit of violence they worked out fine! Thank you Bob C!

researching jumpsuits!

2011-04-06T08:56:00.000+02:00

Center Vents nearing completion

2011-04-05T23:28:00.000+02:00

Thank you BobC for saving my ass when I ruined the upper vents! They are coming along nicely now. Just dry fitted and test glued with some standard Loctite. Now - JB Weld...

Chaos!

2011-04-05T23:16:00.000+02:00

I'm trying to do all at once here, so nothing gets done, lol! Notice the magnets used to clamp the skins. Best clamp ever. I'm loving those magnets!

Got a new babysitter from a galaxy far far away!

2011-04-02T18:00:00.000+02:00

Thank you Geir and Jerry!

2011-03-28T20:37:00.001+02:00

Or is it Gayr judging from the tape? Lol :D

Coin returns!

2011-03-16T17:08:00.000+01:00

Today I received my coin returns rom Wayne. Yay! Thanks mate, job well done! Now I only need some TIME to do some actual work. Two kids and buying/selling our house doesn´t leave much spare time...

Astromech.net is back! Weeeeeeeeeeee!!

2011-03-15T08:38:00.000+01:00

Thank god! Hopefully I can manage to squeeze some building in between buying a new house and selleing the old one - the paperwork...argh!

Astromech.net is down due to server switch

2011-02-28T09:07:00.002+01:00

...and that´s about all I know. Very frustrating but I trust the guys managing the site is doing all they can to get it back up and running asap. You go guys!

Polishing dome

2011-02-03T11:42:00.000+01:00

I´m still sanding/polishing the dome. I started with 180 grain paper on a small mouse sander and am now sanding with 600 grain wetpaper - using wd40 in stead of water. When this is done I´ll clean it and decide wether I want to continue with even finer paper or just keep it as is. I´m not after that high gloss look, but still want it to look clean. More pics after next sanding session...

Arduino!

2011-01-28T22:28:00.002+01:00

I´m playing with my new toy - the arduino open source micro controller. So far I´ve managed to blink a couple of LEDs - a small step for many, a giant leap for me. My first arduino (UNO smd) had a bug in the bootloader, so Robonor sent me a new working one (thanks). In theory you can program the working one to "heal" the faulty one by using the working one as an ISP and then upload a new bootloader to the faulty one - can I fix it? No I can´t - at least not yet. Hopefully the Arduinopeople can find an easy fix - would be cool to have two working arduinos, lol :D

For more info on the arduino check out arduino.cc here

Dust!

2011-01-20T18:32:00.000+01:00

Today I removed all burrs and whatnots from the inside of the outer dome - what a drag! Hopefully it is good enough. I also started sanding the darn thing. I picked up this fake mouse sander for only 17$, so I decided to give it a try. 200 grain paper as a start made those spin lines disappear pretty quick - I still have hours of hand sanding with 400 and 600 etc etc left. Before...

....and after - still LOTS of sanding left. Well, my arms definetly could do with some more exercise. I feel like Karate Kid getting his work out by working.

Dome and Dremel sitting in a tree...

2011-01-20T00:08:00.001+01:00

Finally I managed to free all panels - using the Dremel without a single mistake. Yay!

Luckily I managed to get the line pretty straight where the laser had stopped. I used various files and just filed away very gently until the line looked right. I also got a spare Rear Logics panel from Daren today, thanks mate.

Oh, hehe - I got this "droid builders uniform" for 50$ on the bay the other day :D

Scary! Pt 2

2011-01-09T21:38:00.001+01:00

As I said earlier - today, for some weird reason, I felt the urge to attack the dome head on with the Dremel instead of saving it to last and do it slowly when I have perfected my technique on the skins and scraps.

Tools for today:

The crappy 0,8 mm cutting blades (the good ones are too wide for these gaps) and a medium file (flat one side, curved the other)

Here´s the pie panels cut out. Not a single mistake- The narrow blades leave enough space as long as you have a steady hand. Te rest of the tabs are removed with the file very easily.

Since this went so well I decided to cut off the faulty rear logics panel too.

The bottom ring also came off today. Here's those tiny hands of mine filing away. I found raising the dome up to chest level made it easier to work.

And finally, here's the Astromechanic in all his glory, lol.

- Yeah, I know, the Devils are having a crappy season - but they´ve been my team since I was a kid. Why? No idea :D Nowadays I coach hockey kids (3-7yrs) and am pondering the possibility of trying out for one of the teams in the old boys league...hmmm)

Scary!

2011-01-09T17:00:00.000+01:00

For some reason I felt like attacking the dome head on this morning. In came the Dremel and out with all the safer saws and files. So far all pie panels as well as the bottom ring has come off without any horrors. The dome is made from virgin aluminium - very soft and easy to work with.

Ankles!

2011-01-08T21:40:00.001+01:00

My JAG ankles have arrived. Purchased at the club's junkyard - Thank you Ray!

Minor setback

2011-01-08T14:35:00.000+01:00

The Dome has had an encounter with a lazy laser that has missed parts of one of the gaps. This needs to be sorted. Luckily Daren (Mr. Dome) has offered to send me a spare rear logics dome panel, so I only need to worry about the actual dome. The remedy is to cut off the panel below the top edge of the gap, and then gently file away until the line is perfect. Masking off this line or drawing it on is difficult because of the domes curves, but I´ll figure something out.

Here´s the faulty gap:

Dome!!

2011-01-06T22:16:00.000+01:00

Weeeeeeeeeeeeee! Nerdgasm!! The dome is made up of two layers same as the skins. for info check out 300mmdome.com

Parts from eBay...

2011-01-06T22:00:00.000+01:00

Generally everyone advices against ordering parts from eBay due to crappy quality etc. However... I wanted some coin returns in a hurry as these are used when you align the inner/outer skin. I found these on eBay and decided to give them a try since the price was very low. I regret it now, although I´ve been told by other members of the builders club that the seller normally delivers quality items. I´ll give him the benefit of doubt and settle on my item beeing the one bad egg in the basket...

As you can see these are no longer in one piece - the thing cracked and came apart trying to fit it to the skins - the base of each coin return just doesn´t match up, and the back piece is curved. Upon closer inspection you can see that the whole thing is made up of separate pieces glued together - not accurate enough. Lesson learned - stay off eBay.

The chisel method

2011-01-06T21:22:00.000+01:00

I decided to try the chisel method recommended to me by other builders at astromech.net
I decided to use a small hammer, a needle file that fit perfectly in the larger gaps (se pic 2) and a tiny 90 degree scalpel - kept super sharp on a whetstone. The file did the job on the large gaps while the hammer/scalpel combo made getting at the tabs in the narrow gaps fun - and most importantly - without any dents...

Sherell aluminium skins!

2011-01-06T21:10:00.000+01:00

Testfitting the inner skins. The fit is extremely good.

To test the skins I use these band clamps - perfect for this job.

Frame assembled

2011-01-06T20:37:00.000+01:00

57 mins later and it looks like this. Not bad, not bad at all!

My first part!

2011-01-06T20:31:00.000+01:00

This fantastic piece of kit is a Com8A frame. It assembles in about 1 hour - IKEA style! Available to members of the R2-D2 Builders Club only. Come join us: astromech.net