Cut'em yourself. OUCH!

So I didn't get around to updating on here that I decided to cut my own legs and skins.  Printed out the plans for them on plotter.  attached the skins to some polystyrene  bought from my friend Joel before he moved to Florida for work.  Turns out the 1mm polystyrene is easier to cut than I anticipated.   Its pretty hard on the fingers but it works.  I would up cutting every single panel out for my front skins which I realized after the fact was WAY overkill.   I'll wind up re-cutting a new front set one of these days.  I have to say I think they they look great though.

Tried to cut the Box legs from Frank Pirz as he allows you to download the plans for free if you want to cut them yourself.  Let me know agree whole heartedly with Frank.  I don't know why anyone would want to go through that torture.  1mm styrene cuts pretty easily.  Anything else is really difficult especially if its not an outside edge where the plastic has somewhere to move when its being cut.   I gave up finally when I realized I wasn't able to cut the notch out of the side for the under shoulder details.   Its possible to do this but WAY more work and pain than I was willing to put into it.

She's got Legs! She knows how to use them.

So after Planet ComicCon 2016, I just felt I wasn't getting anywhere with my build when all the other builders around me were zipping right along.  Turns out family and video games will suck up your time like no one's business.  Who knew???  LOL

So Finally go off my butt and ordered legs and the center ankle from Frank Pirz 4 months ago.  They arrived last week.  Been slowly working on them.  So far I've been de-burring the edges of the pieces so they are smooth and the slots are the correct width for pieces to fit together.  It is going to be a slow process.

Dome Spin

This weekend was another milestone.  After fighting with the SyREN10 and the test motor I finally got the motor to engage and spin the rockler.   Its really slow but super high torque.   I could probably drive R2 around and low speed with that thing.  Order a Pololu that is pretty common in the Astromech forums.  Should be here Friday.

While looking for motor specs in the forums I came to realize that I need to upgrade the power bus wiring.  What I have was ok for proof/testing but good chance it won't stand up well to long term usage.  Going to have to order some 14 Gauge wire.  I'd like to swap out the terminal block for a fuse block at some point as well.

Now I need to get a battery, voltage regulator for 12V-5V drop,  and a slip ring to finish out the basic electronics.  Once I have foot motors I'm looking to add some relays that I can break the moto-to-Sabertooth loop to avoid any regenerative breaking feedback.  I am planning to use the Arduino to energize the relay so that 2 things are required for the motors to receive power:

1.  the Arduino is On
1.  this means if the board is powered off the foot motors will automatically get disconnected. 
2. The Arduino enables the foot motors by command from the controller
1. The foot motors would be disabled automatically on boot
2. Manual intervention at the controller is required to enable the motors.  I can disable them at any time from the controller.  Example would be when R2 is just sitting at a convention booth.  He can't move around but the random sounds and dome movements can be running.

Sound!

Re-mounted all the main electronic components and added the Amp and ground loop isolator.  Wired it all up and now R2 has a voice.  Sounds work perfectly.  I plan on adding some sounds in so I'll need to tweak the sketch a little,,no issues there.