Galactican
Sr Member
Hello guys,
I've got myself a used Hasbro Interactive R2-D2 from the bay. When it arrived it would respond to the Q&A game ("Do you remember..."), turn the lightbeam on and off and sing the songs for me. However, it did not move because of low batteries. When I changed the batteries and turned it on again, it turned its head to the right and remained silent. The mood indicator kept blinking red and blue, and that was it. No sounds, no movement, just a whirring sound from the neck rotating motor. I switched it on and off again several times - with no effect.
Then I tried something different. I turned the droid on and while it was warming up I manually turned the head around so that its sensors were directed to the front again. I moved the head a bit from the right to the left and back to the middle - and it started to "speak" again! It makes the known whistles, answers to the Q&A game, switches on and off the lightbeam and it even sings and dances. However, as soon as I release the head it turns to the right again and keeps staying there. The droid wants to roll but due to the fact that its sensors are directed to the back it is unable to "see" where it goes and thus it bumps into things. The dance is executed without bumping because it is a pre-programmed action (however, the head is turned to the back). Giving it new commands is fairly difficult because of the whirring sound of the motor (it is unable to "hear" when the motor is on or when it speaks).
The pictures show how it looks.
I have found some great info on the droid on the net (the disassembling video) and various mods and hacks but nothing was able to tell me how to fix that problem.
Since the majority of the mainboard seems to be intact (because the droid responds to my voice as intended) I guess the issue is caused by something involving the neck rotating motor and / or the system that controls it (maybe the IR diodes not identifying the position of the head or not giving feedback to the mainboard). However, I don't know for sure and do not want to do any damage to the circuitry. I only would like to get it working again.
Does anyone of you have this kind of problem, too, and does anybody know how to fix it?
I've got myself a used Hasbro Interactive R2-D2 from the bay. When it arrived it would respond to the Q&A game ("Do you remember..."), turn the lightbeam on and off and sing the songs for me. However, it did not move because of low batteries. When I changed the batteries and turned it on again, it turned its head to the right and remained silent. The mood indicator kept blinking red and blue, and that was it. No sounds, no movement, just a whirring sound from the neck rotating motor. I switched it on and off again several times - with no effect.
Then I tried something different. I turned the droid on and while it was warming up I manually turned the head around so that its sensors were directed to the front again. I moved the head a bit from the right to the left and back to the middle - and it started to "speak" again! It makes the known whistles, answers to the Q&A game, switches on and off the lightbeam and it even sings and dances. However, as soon as I release the head it turns to the right again and keeps staying there. The droid wants to roll but due to the fact that its sensors are directed to the back it is unable to "see" where it goes and thus it bumps into things. The dance is executed without bumping because it is a pre-programmed action (however, the head is turned to the back). Giving it new commands is fairly difficult because of the whirring sound of the motor (it is unable to "hear" when the motor is on or when it speaks).
The pictures show how it looks.
I have found some great info on the droid on the net (the disassembling video) and various mods and hacks but nothing was able to tell me how to fix that problem.
Since the majority of the mainboard seems to be intact (because the droid responds to my voice as intended) I guess the issue is caused by something involving the neck rotating motor and / or the system that controls it (maybe the IR diodes not identifying the position of the head or not giving feedback to the mainboard). However, I don't know for sure and do not want to do any damage to the circuitry. I only would like to get it working again.
Does anyone of you have this kind of problem, too, and does anybody know how to fix it?
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