Tools down

No more building until after Dragon Con.
This is what R3-T2 will look like. The wife and I have figured out how to get him in and out of our Ford Escape. Its a very tight fit, but when the dome is off, the posts that stick up from the Rockler bearing are just a bit over 32" off the ground... and the clearance for getting him into the Ford is 33".

These were some of the last minute things I got done. Ankle Details, cylinder and wedge, battery boxes, and khf + brass hoses.
Another shot of the feet. I am still missing battery harnesses, but those will eventually turn up.

Side shot to show the leg.
And the dome is still looking OK. There is no clear coat on this dome, so it has taken a bit of damage over the past 6 months, but it will be functional until I can complete my other dome.
I have been having some issues with the shoulders not staying in the position that I want. This is causing some clearance issues with the feet. I will probably spend some time on that the next 2 days to have that all figured out before the convention.

Crunch Time!

Getting down to the wire now for DragonCon!

A few weeks ago my Outer Feet and Skirt Showed up. Amazing work on these parts!


I came across similar problems with the skirt that have been described by others in the past. The bottom ring of the A&A frame does not fit into the JAG skirt. My solution was to cut up the A&A bottom ring and then modify the frame to accept the bolts that are in the Skirt.

I managed to get the skirt mounted, but there is still a ton of work to do to make this complete.
Last weekend, my brother came over to help me out with the feet. I have the A&A motor mounts, and I also have Darryls mounts. I decided to use Darryls mounts, but had to do some minor modifications.
One of the things that has become difficult is getting this dude upside down... My brother helped me get him into this position so we could work on the feet.
I made a few cuts to the outer feet to accommodate the motor mount.
I also modified the battery boxes to match the openings from the feet.
I found some brass hoses at Lowes... I had keith's knurled fittings and put this together to work until I get the khf from the current run.
Here I have the foot mounted. Notice I am missing my cylinders, ankle detail and a few other things.. I hope to get those all finished up this week.
Paint pen tests.. This picture is terrible, but I wanted to have a few paint pens available for any touchup work that needed to be done to the paint. The winners are:
Blue: Elmers
Red: Elmers again
White: Crafts Etc.
Black: Sharpie
Sharpie does sell paint pens and the black used here is not just a regular sharpie marker.

The Wife and I plan to work on logistics this week and early next week. We need to figure out things like:
How do we get R3-T2 out of the house?
How do we get him into the Car?
How do we get him out of the Car?
How well does he drive on industrial carpet?
How well does he drive on shag carpet?
Does he handle bumps well?
Whats exactly is the battery lifespan?
Can I drive him without putting others or himself in danger?
Can my wife drive him without putting others in danger?
and so on and so forth....

3 legs again

Got the center ankle into an acceptable status and we are now back on 3 legs.


worked on some vex programming tonight, and plan to spend another day or so working on the code.

If you missed my post on the r2builders... below is a copy of the instructions to correct the turning problem.

Most vex users probably know about this, but since it wasn't completely obvious I thought I would post.

If your using Arcade2 mode for driving you should have this line of code:

Arcade2(0,1,2,1,2,0,1);

This makes forward and reverse work with the right stick.
The only problem with this is that turning left and right is reversed.
stick left he goes right and stick right he goes left.

To fix this:
press mode+select till you get into the config mode on the remote.
Hit the mode button again to get into the reverse menu.
Press select channel to change to channel 2
press the Data Input button down to reverse the second channel.

done.

right stick forward, reverse, left, and right all respond correctly.

Happy driving!

Will probably spend some time fixing up the Aspects dome. Getting some lights to work and other stuff.

Skirt, and Feet still not here, but I am still very happy with my progress.

waiting for parts

not much to report.
waiting on skirt, feet, and other minor things.

did some work on the alu dome but not enough progress to show.
working on center ankle at the moment.

Going to be cutting a few corners to get my droid in shape for DragonCon. So any major noticeable flaws will be fixed as I have time.