T-Jay[TK] Posted January 24, 2020 Report Posted January 24, 2020 4 minutes ago, zv288bot said: (...) So far, each of those panels will be taking my printer approximately, 1 day, 18hours and 11mins according to Cura. Gotta add your electricity costs into the budget of this project. Quote
zv288bot[TK] Posted January 24, 2020 Author Report Posted January 24, 2020 1 minute ago, T-Jay said: Gotta add your electricity costs into the budget of this project. My wife keeps asking me that same question. Haha! Quote
MaskedVengeance[Staff] Posted January 25, 2020 Report Posted January 25, 2020 My wife keeps asking me that same question. Haha!Not that I really want to know, but I’m tempted to hook my printer through my power usage meter once I get up and running. Picked up the meter several years ago to measure exterior Christmas lights, but never actually paid attention to it.Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk 1 Quote
zv288bot[TK] Posted January 25, 2020 Author Report Posted January 25, 2020 1 hour ago, MaskedVengeance said: Not that I really want to know, but I’m tempted to hook my printer through my power usage meter once I get up and running. Picked up the meter several years ago to measure exterior Christmas lights, but never actually paid attention to it. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk On a couple of facebook groups people have ask and the response has usually been it's pennies on the dollar. Oh well, what a couple of more months at this point! 1 Quote
zv288bot[TK] Posted February 9, 2020 Author Report Posted February 9, 2020 (edited) So I have completely epoxied the head, no going back now. I cut a piece of styrene for the lid of the dome and I have started to sand and get it prepped for paint. I still need to order all of the electronics for the dome alone. Following a builders log, I need a couple of neopixel leds, an arduino, a usb stick, a couple of neopixel stick for his power LED on the side of his dome and lastly, a clue. Then more sanding and I need to place a layer of spot putty/bondo on the dome for sure. I completed all of the skins on the Jan 23rd. So that was a little over 2 months, almost non stop printing to print out, the dome, the body frame, the body skins, the skirt and some random parts as I tried to use up the remnants of all the spools I have laying around. Also, in case anyone was wondering. That's 50 (fifty) nuts and bolts. Just to attach all of his panels. Next up... Printing legs... for days... Edited February 9, 2020 by zv288bot Quote
zv288bot[TK] Posted February 9, 2020 Author Report Posted February 9, 2020 So, IMHO, the legs are the freaking most scariest thing on this build. I am not sure why, it probably has to do with the fact that the leg files haven't been released to astromech.net yet because they are still a work in progress. Honestly, my bigger concern is that most of the 3d print chopper builds go undocumented. I guess I am spoiled or ruined by this forum. The amount of info shared on this site is amazing compared to others I frequent. Anyhoo... I started the legs, The guy that created the files made them with areas for captured nuts. To do so, you need to time it so you can pause the print and drop them in. Resume the print and in theory they become part of the piece. My issue with this is I usually have these prints going all night and day and definitely while I am at work. So,that's not gonna work for me. I decided in my over arrogance to take his files to tinkercad and modify them so I could complete the pint and just drop nuts and washer in. A couple of hours in and I think I did pretty good. First leg piece. This is the shoulder for the left leg. (about 25 hours to print) Next up, the modified lower part of the shoulder! Close up of the slot I made. A little sloppy but I will just file them. So printed that second piece went right for the epoxy! Feeling super good! Quote
zv288bot[TK] Posted February 9, 2020 Author Report Posted February 9, 2020 Here is another piece... Starting to look like something. Now I have 3 pieces left to go to finish this one shoulder. Quote
zv288bot[TK] Posted February 9, 2020 Author Report Posted February 9, 2020 Next up and 24+ hours later... You know what, this is going pretty good. Why was I so scared. I should have know, everything is gonna be alright... Wha....! Why is this... it's ok, breathe... So I take it to facebook cause no one responds on the astromech forum and I get what I absolutely did not want to hear. Something is messed up. grrrrrrrrrrrrrr...... Quote
zv288bot[TK] Posted February 9, 2020 Author Report Posted February 9, 2020 (edited) So something is out of wack. But which piece, technically I have 3 pieces that can be the culprit and all of them are 24+ hour prints!! Someone on facebook mentioned a center hub needed to be printed, it was less than 24 hours to print so I decided to go for that. That should tell me if it is the 2 pieces I epoxied together or the rounded shoulder piece. Here goes nothing! Ok, so the hub doesn't fit. After starring at it long and hard, It looks like when I modified the slots into that lower shoulder piece I must have changed the overall size of the piece. (Curse you 3D printing gods!!!) So... I now need to reprint those two pieces because I was overly confident and epoxied them together instead of just letting them sit like I did with everything else!! Here is more proof that the rounded shoulder piece printed right. The hub matches the cut out perfectly. oh well, it's been a pretty smooth ride so far, right? Edited February 9, 2020 by zv288bot Quote
zv288bot[TK] Posted February 9, 2020 Author Report Posted February 9, 2020 Days later, new pieces are looking good. New shoulder piece is currently printing and should be done by the morning. Quote
zv288bot[TK] Posted February 9, 2020 Author Report Posted February 9, 2020 (edited) So as I have been hanging out on facebook droid sites, I was asking around about a cut acrylic piece for choppers leds on the side of his head. I finally did get in touch with a guy whose post I originally saw but unfortunately, the sizes did not match. (Droids don't have CRLs so it's all up to artistic expression) This droid not being as popular as R2 definitely has a bunch of builds with differences some subtle and some obvious. A few days latter a fellow chopper builder reached out and said she would give it a try. She had me visit her etsy shop. Purchase some lenses for another item and remark that I needs this cut for my chopper. Well what I received soon after was amazing. The fit was spot on. The thing that impressed me the most about this whole deal was I basically gave her a drawing with some general dimensions on a piece of paper, hand drawn. This is what I got back! Blown away. Edited February 9, 2020 by zv288bot 2 Quote
zv288bot[TK] Posted February 9, 2020 Author Report Posted February 9, 2020 (edited) Chopper is way simpler than an R2. He doesn't really have a lot of fancy strobe lights, no flaps... flapping away. He's is pretty basic and straight forward. When it come to additional features outside of just head spinning and moving on wheels, I decided I wanted to immediately start with having his arm (center of his body) move in and out. So while leg prints printed. I started putting together all of the piece to get this going. Again, I really need a clue. Edited February 9, 2020 by zv288bot Quote
Sly11[Admin] Posted February 9, 2020 Report Posted February 9, 2020 This is so impressive Jorge, cant wait to see the finished product. 1 Quote
zv288bot[TK] Posted February 23, 2020 Author Report Posted February 23, 2020 Still printing legs. It feels like forever! 5 more pieces and everything will be printed for one (1) leg... ugh. I still need to go back and print all of the same parts below the shoulder for the other side plus one more shoulder piece. I don't remember when it was the last time I wasn't printing a leg part. Quote
zv288bot[TK] Posted February 23, 2020 Author Report Posted February 23, 2020 While all of this has been printing I have started to spot putty the dome and also sprayed primer on the frame. 3D droids guy say to use Rustoleum Filler Primer. I forgot how much the smell of this stuff lingers after it's been sprayed. I'm going on about 4 or 5 days and I can still smell it. This is only the first round. I am gonna be sanding, filling and adding more primer in the near future. The weather here in Georgia has been wonky and it's prevented me from taking this outside. Quote
zv288bot[TK] Posted February 23, 2020 Author Report Posted February 23, 2020 While waiting on legs to print, paint to dry and all the sanding I did also work on a smaller project for this. It's a periscope that will pop out of the top of the dome. It was a easy print and I was able to source all of the metal (nuts, bolts and tubing) from Ace Hardware. Quote
zv288bot[TK] Posted March 21, 2020 Author Report Posted March 21, 2020 Currently printing up the foot shells for this guy. This is literally taking forever! Quote
zv288bot[TK] Posted March 21, 2020 Author Report Posted March 21, 2020 Oh I did also get lights going in the dome. 7 Quote
Sly11[Admin] Posted March 22, 2020 Report Posted March 22, 2020 Great progress mate, this will be so cool to see finished.Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk 1 Quote
zv288bot[TK] Posted June 14, 2020 Author Report Posted June 14, 2020 Holy smokes! I have lots of updating to do!! Get ready for the mega dump! Here are a couple of leg pics. I need to go back through this thread. I noticed some or a lot of the images are gone. I am pretty sure when I was moving stuff around in imgur I didn't realize it would just remove the images completely. anyhoo... 1 Quote
zv288bot[TK] Posted June 14, 2020 Author Report Posted June 14, 2020 (edited) I put together the foot shells and I glued and assembled them, then I realized I shouldn't have assembled them until I install the drive motors so that was awesome! super tight squeeze! Hope those nut are on tight enough?! ugh, it took 2 days and having to go through lots of trial and error. Edited June 14, 2020 by zv288bot 1 Quote
zv288bot[TK] Posted June 14, 2020 Author Report Posted June 14, 2020 Lot's of primer and filler and sanding but I got some base coats on the legs. Quote
zv288bot[TK] Posted June 14, 2020 Author Report Posted June 14, 2020 Electronics are coming in. Ordering them from everywhere. Amazon, ebay, hobbyking... I have only a little idea of what I am doing. I have been reading as many build threads as I can find. Annoying some of the local droid builders and trying to make sense of all of this. I realize today, that I have turned into my parents with patience. I know am asking these younger droid builders to set the time on my VCR. Just testing for fit. I cut this plexi board to size. (I borrowed it from my wife's crafting closet, hopefully she wont need it ever) Controller... 1 Quote
zv288bot[TK] Posted June 14, 2020 Author Report Posted June 14, 2020 Got the final components to do get ready to power Chopper up. Ugh, I forget I needed to come up with a battery mount. I went the power tool route. It seems like it's a direction all the kids are really into these days. and it doesn't fit... plus the batteries are too close together so it makes it super awkward to reach in and swap them out. I'm cutting it down to one. (I am actually running the whole droid on one. I was just using the second slot as a holder for a fully charged battery so I can swap them out when one dies.) Mucho more gooder... Quote
zv288bot[TK] Posted June 14, 2020 Author Report Posted June 14, 2020 OK so I powered this guy up and of course I had issues. I had tested all of the components separately and they all responding as they should. I wired this guy all up (I may have had a beverage or two while at it) and it definitely acting erratic. Here is a drawing of my wiring diagram. I thought it looked good! Turns out I had a 5 volt wire from the receiver going to the dome motor controller that was bugging the whole system out?! Don't ask me how I figured this out. Honestly, I am pretty sure I stumbled across a forum on the manufactures web site when I was frantically typing stuff into a google search. Here is the culprit! This is the board, There is a 5v slot on the top of board in this image you can see it's blank cause I removed it. Quote
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