Sorry To Say...That's All Folks

The title says it all. The build is done. For now. For the past two months I have been trying to get the boys to help me work on R2. At 4 & 6 years of age their attention span/ patience just isn't there understandably. I cannot work on R2 after their bed time as it is too loud and they have lost interest. This build was supposed to be a father and son experience so I have put everything on hold. Maybe when they get older they will regain their interest. Until then...Thats all folks.

New Light Kit Is On The Way

O.K. So I am still disappointed in the fact that the three rear LED's did not work on the periscope. After a lot of begging I have been able to get my hands on another lighting kit for the periscope. Even better, I have a fellow builder willing to help.

Stay tuned as the new fully functioning periscope will be ready soon.

Periscope lights are done...for now

O.K. As I mentioned in the past I am not an electrical guy. In the process of soldering and de-soldering then re-soldering the rear bulbs of the periscope I damaged the PCB and am unable to get the 3 small lights in the back of the periscope to work. Yes, I admit it, even I am not perfect. Until another run of the kits are available it will have to do.

I re-assembled the periscope along with the risers and then inserted the lighting kit which I found to be a more daunting task than originally thought. It is a very tight fit. After a few curse words and a lot of patience I got the PCB to fit. I then ran the wires through the periscope risers and connected the power to test it.

See it in action here

While I am disappointed about the 3 small LED's in the back not working lets face it, the real shock and awe is on the front. This is a really neat design in the fact that the LED bulbs are RBG so every time I supply power it runs through a different code. There are probably 25 or more codes already pre-programmed. Like I said, if the kit is offered again I will most likely take another stab at it in hopes of getting the rear bulbs to work. Once R2 is all finised I do not believe it will really be a big deal. Besides, if someone comments the back LED lights don't work I'll respond "I guess yours do right? Oh, wait, you don't have a R2 so go (you can figure out the rest)"



Periscope Special Edition (Don't worry... Greedo doesn't shoot first)

A while back the boys and I assembled an aluminum periscope for R2. The periscope is seen in both the Dagobah scene on The Empire Strikes Back and in the Dune Sea during Return of the Jedi. I recently got in on a run of periscope lighting kits that were offered through the Astromech builders site by RotoPod. Having recieved it we decided to get to work. Just like the dome lights soldering was required so ole dad did much of the work after the boys were asleep.

To start, I needed to paint the periscope. Being that the periscope is aluminum it is necessary to prime it with a metal etching primer. This allows the primer to penetrate and grip to the aluminum. After a trip to the auto store I picked up a can of metal etching primer and taped off the periscope. I then applied an even coat of the metal etching primer.

After the etching primer cured I then sprayed an even coat of Tamiya gray primer. Tamiya is a great primer product that adheres to multiple surfaces, aluminum being one of them. To find it I had to go to a local Hobby shop that deals in models and RC vehicles. If you attempt to build an R2 or any astromech you will need to find such a shop as they also sell the controllers and servos required for the build.

Having allowed the Tamiya primer to cure I then applied a coat of Rustoleum Satin White and then Rustoleum Clear Coat to seal it.

After finishing the paint I moved to the lighting kit. As previously mentioned the lighting kit was offered through the club and included everything from the PCB, LEDs, wire, etc.

I began by soldering the wires on the sides of the PCB. There are 3 red LED bulbs that sit in the back of the periscope that these wires run to.

Next I went to WalMart and purchased a bottle of black fingernail polish. The PCB needed to be painted on the sides as the LED's are so bright that I did not want light from the center bleeding through to the sides or vice versa. I then installed black electrical tape on the inside of the PCB for the same purpose.

There are several LED bulbs at the top of the periscope. The kit included a rubber piece to fit over the PCB on the inside of the periscope. I inserted the plastic LED covers and prepared for the remaining LED's.

The next step was to install the red square LED's in the front of the periscope. The bulbs were not completely square but tapered so it was necessary to file them down some so that they would all fit in the periscope. The next step was to solder the red LED bulbs into the PCB.

The next step in the process was to take the white rubber light deflector and install it inside the PCB.

Finally I had to solder the RED LED bulbs for the back of the periscope to the lead wires on the sides of the PCB.

Using shrink tubing I soldered the wire to the LED leads and then heated the shrink tube to close tight around the LED leads.



At this point I put things on hold. There are still two side diffusers that need to be trimmed down and installed into the periscope and upon attempting to make the installation two of the side wires from the side of the PCB broke free. I need to de-solder and then re-solder those connections to finsh the periscope. With any luck I will find time in the next week to do so and will post the finished results.









The LED's Strike Back

Feeling confident in my abilities having completed the Front Logic Displays I decided it was time to complete the Rear Logic Displays having recieved the brighter LED's in the mail.

Along with the brighter bulbs Paul included a toggle switch with the upgrade kit. The purpose of the toggle switch was that in the past when you connected the 9 volt battery to the Pololu regulator if you tried to "jump" a wire to connect a board the Ardunio chip would short out. The toggle switch allows for you to leave the battery connected and just flip the switch on and off like your light switch.

I started by cutting into the 9 volt lead wire and soldering on the toggle switch. Easy enough. This build is going to be a breeze......

Feeling confident, if not just plain cocky, I began placing the LED's into their correct slots. Just like the FLD's there is a lighting schematic I used to be sure that I installed the correct color bulb into the correct slot.

As you can see from the schematic the RLD is comprised of a combination of Red, Yellow and Green LED bulbs.

Just Like the FLD's I started by breaking out my Helping Hands from Radio Shack and securing the RLD board. I flipped my newly installed toggle switch to the "on" position and stared installing all of the Red LED's. I like to install them with the power on as it allows me to be sure that I am installing the right color as well as to make certain that I am not installing the bulbs backwards. If installed backwards the bulb will stay in the lit position and will not be able to flicker "on" and "off" as they are programmed by the Ardunio to do.

After having all of the Red LED's installed in the right slots I placed the CNC cut bezel included in the kit over the bulbs to hold them tight in place and used blue painters tape to hold it in place. I then flipped the board over and began to trim down the terminal leads from the bulbs so I could solder them in place.

I will apologize now as this is where the pictures stopped and the frustration began. I soldered all of the leads and then repeated all of the steps with the Yellow and Green LED's. Each time sticking out my chest and telling myself how easy this is. Then I turned them all on to see my finished product.

At first it was not too bad. Only 5-6 lights were not working. I powered down and trimmed the leads shorter as if the leads for the LED bulbs contact one another it causes a short and the bulbs touching will not light. After trimming down the leads even shorter and finding where leads were in fact touching and fixing that I powered back up even cockier now that I troubleshot the problem so I am therefore multi talented in the field of soldering electronics. Now even more bulbs were not working. Hence the title of this blog.... The LED's Strike Back.

At this point I feel smaller than Mini-Me. I am cussing and frustrated. When you are in this state it is best to take a break and collect your thoughts. Me, I went back to tinkering with it. Two more attempts and even more lights not working I gave up. After speaking to someone with more soldering experience I went back and checked my solder points. In several places the solder was touching in multiple areas. When this happens it is the same as leads touching one another and results in a short. Now having a clue I de-soldered those areas with de-solder braid and a de-solder pump then re-did them. All but a few bulbs did not work. I decided that I could live with that.

Onto the PSI's (Process State Indicators). **Disclaimer**: This is where I cheated. The PCB boards I recieved were not correct for the LED's. Paul, who made the kit, told me to send it back. I packed up everything so he could test the boards and he was kind enough to just assemble the two PSI's for me. He even fixed the few lights on the RLD that were not working.

In the end the dome lights are done and they all work perfect. My faith in my soldering skills is another story.







Let There Be Light........I Hope

*Disclaimer* I am an idiot when it comes to circuit boards and such so for anyone about to read on please forgive me if I call or spell something incorrectly.

Dome lights. I have been dreading this part of the build. I have no background when it comes to wiring and circuit boards. I never hooked up a car stereo. Actually, I did, once. Just not correctly. It resulted in a very nice electrical fire while driving down the road. Needless to say I was not anxious to start this portion of the build.

The dome lights make up all of the lights in R2's head. There are two Process State Indicators (PSI's) and the front and rear Logic Displays (FLD & RLD). As I am also a slow typer I will be referring to them moving forward as they are abbreviated.

Once again the great group of builders at astromech.net came through. A run of dome light kits were offered and I jumped on board. Having recieved the kit I was a little nervous as it included the circuit boards, LED bulbs, sockets, pin headers, microchips, cables and etc needed to build the PSI's and Logic Displays. I purchased a soldering iron and a "Helping Hand" from Radio Shack. My brother in law walked me through the basics of soldering and after watching the tutorial for the kit a dozen times I felt ready to get started. I began by taking the circuit board for the RLD and soldering on the sockets. I would put them where they needed to go and then use blue painters tape to hold it in place so I could turn it over and solder the leads. The picture below is of the RLD with the sockets soldered in place. As soldering involves a very hot soldering iron I did this portion of the build without the boys as I did not want to risk them getting injured.



The above picture shows the RLD circuit board turned over so that my solder points are visible.

The next step was to take pin headers (in this case a double row of 5-pin headers) and solder them to the board to allow a place for the cables to attach. Likewise I soldered the small green screw terminal to the board. As you can see in the picture below the pin headers have to be cut to the pin count that you need.

The idea behind all of this is that once built, not only will the lights work but they will flash in a random pattern to simulate R2 having thought processes. In order to do this an Ardunio mini processor was installed. I began by soldering the socket that would hold the Ardunio chip and then installed the chip as pictured below. I also soldered on the three transistors.

The next step was power. I used a Pololu 5volt regulator. Basically the Pololu takes a 9volt batery charge and converts it down to 5 volts which is all that will be needed to power the lights. I started by soldering another 2-screw terminal to the 9volt end of the Pololu and a double row of 4-pin pin headers to the 5volt end. 

Next I attached a 9volt battery terminal lead (purchased from Radio Shack) to the 2-screw terminal.

The next step was to use a 2-pin cable and connect the Pololu regulator to the RLD board and connect a 9volt battery and see if the light on the Ardunio came on. It didn't. I cussed and yelled and found that the problem was the lead on the positive end of the 9volt terminal wire had been cut off when I tightened the screw terminal so after stripping the wire and re-connecting it the light came on.

The next step at this point should have been to install the LED bulbs for the RLD however, an upgrade kit with brighter bulbs became available as several builders thought the RLD's could have been brighter so I am still waiting for those to arrive. Instead, I began assembling the FLD's. Below is a FLD board prior to any work.

Once again I started by soldering the sockets to the boards.

Using the tape to hold each component in place I soldered on the socket followed by a double row 5-pin pin header and then the transistors. R2 has two FLD's so I had to do this to two boards.

With the help of my "Helping Hands" from Radio Shack I was able to get all of the main components soldered.

(FLD with Pin Headsers and Sockets Soldered)

Now came the scary part....the LED's.

For every little hole you see in the above picture an LED bulb has to be installed. This seems like no big deal until you try to solder all of the leads and have little to no area to work with. The solution...install every other bulb, trim the soldered lead, then go back and do the next set. The lights are blue and white LED's and I used the following pattern that I found on the astromech site for bulb placement.

Did I mention the bulbs are small?

Luckily for me my brother in law stopped by to see how I was doing and leant a hand. Once they were done I used the custom bezels included in the kit and attached them to the aluminum logic displays I showed in a previous post to have the following:

And now the finished product.........

I still have the RLD LED's to install which will be a combination of Green, Yellow and Red LED's and the two PSI's. As soon as I recieve the upgrade kit I will get back to soldering. Stay tuned...more dome lighting to come. Oh yeah, I managed to burn the crap outta myself with the soldering iron.

Grilling & Sanding. A Sunday Must.

I awoke Sunday to a beautiful day outside. Slightly overcast with a high in the mid 70's. We have family in town and had already planned for me to cook a brisket. For anyone out there unfamiliar with cooking a brisket in Texas you use a grill/smoker. An oven cooked brisket is a sin. Average rule of thumb is the brisket needs to cook for at least one hour per pound so an 8lb. brisket needs a minimum of 8 hours.

I knew I would therefore be outside for the majority of the day so out came R2 and all of the different grits of sandpaper that we still had left to use.

As always, we started with the lowest grit. Last time we used the 5 sheets of 240 so this time we started with 400. Once again we used wet/dry paper and dipped it in moms mop bucket. Below is the dome having used up all 5 sheets of 400 grit.

As you can see it is still pretty rough. We next broke out the 600 grit. 600 still has a little coarseness to it but nothing like the 240 and 400 and after we burned through all of the sheets I was starting to get a little concerned that I should have left the dome as is and never started sanding it.

Moving along it was on to the 800 grit. At this point the coarseness is almost nonexistent. We continued to dip the paper in water and work the dome over and over taking the occasional break to rinse the dome off for a clean start. Below is the dome after the 800 grit.

Do you notice much of a change? I still was not seeing it.

We started fresh with 1000 grit. At this point the 1000 grit is more of a finishing sand paper used generally on automotive applications. We were very liberal (not a term often used to describe my household) with the water and sanded till the paper fell apart.

We finally finished out with the 2000 grit. More of wetting the paper and working the dome. The 2000 grit was the highest grit sandpaper I was able to find and it was as smooth as a regular piece of paper to start with. We sanded until we were convinced that there was nothing more to sand and then took the dome inside and set it in the bath tub where we cleaned it with moms dish sponge (nevr thought that would fly) and a little dab of dish soap. We then set it in the sun to dry. Behold....the sanded dome.

We still have alot to do. The next step is to sit the outside dome (pictured above) over the inside dome and trace out the pie panels, holoprojector holes and doors so I can begin cutting them out. Luckily I recieved a Dremel 4000 last May for my birthday so it will be getting put to the test soon. After cutting out the interior dome pieces we will install the hinges for the doors and any mounts for the hp's as well as the logic displays and then I think (emphasis on think) we will be ready to bond the two domes together. After all of that is done we will polish the dome with Mothers Aluminum Polish and should get that mirrored shine that the boys wanted. 

More to come. Almost forgot....the brisket was good