pics and progress

Parts:
300mm ALU Dome!!!!!
All the way back in my second or third post to this blog I considered my options for Domes. I played with an Aspects Super dome to create my R3-T2 red head...but this is the real deal!

Picked up a few resin parts from Keith. I lack Battery Boxes, braided hose, and a few other smaller odds and ends. Would like to get another set of feet also, but the resin ones will work for a while.

ALU parts from Daniel and Michael! Arms, LDP, and Leg struts.

Progress:

During the wiring progress, I had to take off the top ring of my A&A frame. This is starting to look pretty messy in here. And it wasn't until later that I realized I had a fairly serious problem. Circled in Red is where the 2 motors are actually in contact with each other... this is bad. I sort of fixed this by shimming the center motor a bit and there is about a millimeter of clearance at the moment.

Installed a few switches which will be accessible via a front door panel.

This is the backside of these switches. They are DPDT with center off.
Also for anyone who has been keeping up, you probably notice that my center leg arm changed from black pvc+alu to plywood+alu. I had to make some modifications to the center leg because it wasn't traveling far enough. There isn't a ton of information out there, but some guesses at the center foot movement is between 9.5 inches and 11 inches. With this change I managed to get my center foot traveling about 10.5 inches. The center wheel may be just slightly visible when standing in 2 leg mode just below the edge of the skirt.

OK, this is the wiring about 70% done. Some wires are hanging loose at the moment so it looks fairly busy. Controllers, batteries, Sound, and other things are all wired up and ready.

Here is another shot of the back panel. Volt meters on the left tell me the status of my batteries. (the power is off at the moment)

These are the parts I still need to find a home for inside my droid. (Not pictured are the speakers that also need to be installed... somewhere.)

This is the space I am looking at to put the rest of this gear. Its going to be a very tight fit.. and I need to make sure there is enough clearance for the center foot arm. I also need to conserve space for my dome drive kit which should be in next week. That has to fit somewhere up front...I hope.

I ran out of wire.. and need to pick up some more disconnects. Plan to stop by radio shack and the post office tommorow.

more wires

lots of wires.
Now that I have my diagram, I have been working on actually implementing it.
No pictures to show, but its been slow going. I have some serious space issues to overcome.

I won't know for sure where I can mount the battery chargers until I get my dome and dome base plate. I need to know how much room will exist between the frame and the base plate. If there isn't enough there for at least a few things, then I will need to abscond some of the front door areas.

more soon

wiring design

I sat down at my PC and worked up this design using Microsoft paint.
I know for a fact that this is a fairly silly design, but I wanted to get the most out of my power sources... which is why there are 4 different power setups.
Click on the image to get a better view of the design.

The Vex is maxed on motor/servo ports in this design, so if I want to add more servos I will need another Vex controller.


No pictures of the AA frame and wires tonight. I'll try to get something different posted by the end of the week.

frustration

I am not sure if every builder goes through this or not, but I started noticing small problems the other day, and decided to take a step back and fix them. While I was fixing those problems, I found more ... and more.. until my droid is back to the state he was about a month ago.

The only difference between now and then.. is that I know a lot more about how to put this guy together.

*sigh*

I will hopefully have r2 mostly back together by the end of this week, with many of the flaws fixed.

must fix things before I go much further

OK I'm sure you guys are getting tired of seeing the same old pictures, but I had to take a step back today. While I was working on wires yesterday It occurred to me that I had several details that need to be addressed before I could really feel comfortable with R2 rolling around. So I pulled the batteries and flopped him over on his head.

One of the first things I worked on was the feet. You will notice that the wheel axle is sitting in the lowest slot.. This puts the wheel a bit lower than the ball caster which makes the foot tilt. I decided this was not what I wanted. This also impacts my leg rod setup and a cascade of other things.

so I took everything apart...
Legs, Feet, and a portion of the leg rod system all in a pile.

My A&A frame with just a few bits of wiring. I spent some time on the frame going through my threaded rod setup. There were a few places that needed to be tightened down and others rods needed some adjustments.

One thing that has been in the back of my head this past week is how cramped the space is getting inside the frame. These are my battery chargers, and I am really curious to see where I can jam these into my droid.

My plan was to have a power strip somewhere inside r2 that provides power to both of these chargers, my Vex charger, and a few AA battery chargers. That power strip would terminate to this C13 outlet. A computer cable could be used to plug him into an AC outlet.

There is some space between the center vents and the arm for the center foot, but I will need to build something to hold them in place. This also throws out the idea of having speakers sit behind these center vents... so I am still not sure about it.

more tomorrow I hope.

wires

Did a bit of wiring tonight. This is not my strong point so this may look messy, but I am happy with my progress.

2 legs - leg rods 95% completed

Standing on 2 legs again. No duct tape this time. Leg rods almost completed. There is still a fair amount of slop in the leg rod system at the feet and just the smallest amount of slop in the shoulder. I plan to replace the screw in the shoulder to fix that part, but the slop in the feet will need another day to think about how to solve.
Front shot.

Oh.. didn't realize you could see the electronics on the above picture. The connection bar, and the blue box are on the backside of the electronics that are shown below. I actually have the Vex power charger connected to the battery and the vex controller. The switch shown below is the toggle to put him into a charging position. Its a 3 position switch on, off, charge is the current setup.
Back shot.

Head on backwards.


This picture didn't turn out very well, but this was how I solved my rod to frame problems. I actually cut my 1/2 tube and then used 2 collars and some aluminum bars.
This gives me better access to wiring, and I can individually adjust each leg right here without having to disassemble the shoulder cam components.


While I was cutting aluminum, I cut some pieces to mount a few batteries.

And here the battery is in place.


I should be working on wiring for the next day or two. After that I will be programming my vex for several days.

slow week again

Sorry for the delay in posting. I didn't get much time this week to work on R2.
I am still trying to solve my leg rod problem, but decided to take a break from it until I get a few other things completed.

I started to work on some electronics. In this picture I have pulled the wire through the legs. I also did this because I needed to find out if there was enough room for the legrod and the wire.


I picked up some sheet metal, and mounted several of the electronic parts. R2 is upside down.

new suspect...

I didn't get much work done on Sunday, but today I decided to take on these split clamps again. After drilling out one of the screws that had broken off in the clamp, I got everything back together and the clamps seem to be doing much better.

I was starting to get excited that I might actually make some progress. I decided I should test the system and it didn't take long to notice that the feet were moving way too much. I checked the clamps again.. and then raised the center leg and I saw my new nemesis...

My idea to use this flat bar and just a hole in the pipe is apparently not a good idea. I did my test again and the pipe was clearly moving.. not the clamps.


I pulled out the bolt and as you can see from this terrible picture.. the bolt is now bent. Its not bent by much, but its enough that the feet were flopping around a good inch or two. Any play down there at the pipe translates to a lot of movement at the feet.


I might have just used to much weight on everything, but this is actually why I was doing the tests... is this stuff going to hold up when my droid weighs ~130lbs?

I put my tools down after discovering this problem, and plan to take a day to think about how to lock the pipe to a fixed position relative to the frame.

some progress.. new problems

Well I was pretty disappointed last night when the cams failed and R2 started to fall over.. but I gotta keep moving forward. I decided to stay away from the cams and leg rods till I made some progress on the center leg.

There is some question of how sturdy the front leg support plate is that holds the center leg motor. Andy had mentioned sending me the extra part, but not sure if that's actually going to happen, so I proceeded to make my own out of some spare PVC from the original frame.


I placed this panel over the top of the front leg support plate and ran a few screws through it. I wanted to make sure that this thing was secured to the right and left mid plates (review the A&A frame documentation to identify the mid plates)


lets see.. Electronics. I started wiring a few things together to get the shoulder motors and center leg motor working. Its a mess but everything seems to be working.

I used alligator clips to connect the motors temporarily since I need a way to quickly connect and disconnect.


hmm... that was actually pretty easy. Everything went together on this without too many issues. Watch the Video!


Well.. after all that I decided to go back to the cams and the tilt rods. No new insight. I managed to break a few screws trying to tighten stuff down. Those will pose a serious challenge to remove or repair. But when I put my tools down for the day I had managed a new milestone. R2 is on 3 legs. Doesn't appear to be the correct angles.. but he isn't falling over.