Hinges on the dome.

Made some home-made jag-like hinges for my pie panels. Used a jeweler saw and some scrap pieces from the inner skins. 

They aren't perfect but they seem to work pretty well. 

Now I just have to figure out what sketch to control them with. 

So the previous post can be called "before"....
And this will be "After"

I credit this:  http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B001IBHVNY/ref=oh_details_o00_s00_i00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

This: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B001EOWR3Y/ref=oh_details_o00_s00_i01?ie=UTF8&psc=1

This: http://www.harborfreight.com/dual-hitch-extender-69881.html

So every "joint" where something meets another, there is a gadget of some sort tightening things up.

Long time no post...

I have tried to put together a way of transporting R2... Hopefully, this will work. If I am enraged and despondent tomorrow, and nobody can figure out why, it's probably because R2's remains are in 3 different places...

I had to get a "scooter carrier" and a hitch, but there was lots of play, so I got just a little lean:
Before:

After:

Upload pictures later. :P

DragonCon!

I didn't try for any autographs or anything. I just have a "thing" against paying for them. Can't help it. It just rubs me the wrong way. Elevator with Malcolm McDowell (did not say anything to him. I've heard of negative trekkie comments.) and I'm pretty sure Julian Sands was in there with us.

http://youtu.be/QGhNjwjBXW8

Garrett Wang was extremely friendly. He loved my R2 doing Dalek sounds. Marina Sirtis seemed intrigued as well, but Michael Dorn, Brent Spiner, and Avery Brooks didn't really even look up. :( Anthony Simcoe took a selfie with R2 and a somewhat lewd gesture towards his head. Kinda funny. I usually just move him away when people do that, but not D'argo, I guess. :)

Rolled R2 by Peter Davison while there was a large line, people seemed to really like the sonic screwdriver come out of his panel. R2 started saying The Doctor must die! and Exterminate again, and PD was all like, "you're supposed to be nice! You're supposed to be good!" Moved along so people wouldn't get mad at me for screwing around, interrupting the line.

I was a little bummed, I caught a fleeting glance of John Barrowman running past our table area downstairs. I really wanted to see his face when confronted with a Dalek'd R2, but the faces of all the Doctors, companions, and women in TARDIS dresses was pretty rewarding.

Return of the blog

R2's new toy!
After months of wanting to, and pondering how, I added a sonic screwdriver to where a CPU interface arm would normally go. :)

R2 got invited to a wedding with some 501st guys.
There was a disastrous fall. A face-plant into the sidewalk before the wedding started. Thank you sidewalk crack, and thank you pretty woman R2 decided to try and follow!
I was able to patch together everything that broke during the ceremony and had him dancing with just a few scratches.
The wedding people were great. The bride and groom were not only Star Wars fans, but Doctor Who as well. Coincidentally, I had just figured out the Arduino code necessary to make this thing work, at 3:00 AM the morning of. So I was fooling around letting R2 threaten to "Exterminate" some kids, and then some sounds. The bride perked up and said, "Why do I hear the TARDIS?!" Hearing that, I got into the panels and re-enabled the servos for the arm and door. I still have a huge problem with the pittman motor activity causing the servos to go bat-crap crazy. Hopefully a filter capacitor will help, but I'm not sure what else to try.

 

Video of it working:  

Merry Christmas

Most people will probably come here from Reddit. Merry Christmas.

New foot

Finally, the middle shell gets to go somewhere other than my shelf.

I built this today because the A&A was drooping so much, it was affecting the forward/reverse transition when moving around... Also, the casters I put on it extended beyond the base plate, preventing the foot shell from going on.


Tomorrow, I'll attempt the side foot shells and the battery boxes if I feel like making a big, stinky mess.