The official Munson R2 build up thread

Matt, do you know who's resin parts those are or did they just come with the kit you got? If you get resin parts from Keith Henry they are pretty much ready to prime and paint. I don't have any of his parts, but everyone raves about them. I just don't want people getting the wrong impression that resin parts from the R2 club are not good.

As far as price for building one, it depends on what you build it from. My parts are all aluminum. That really is overkill I think. If I were to do it again they would probably be resin. Between the A&A parts and Keith's resin parts, you have just about a complete droid. Probably cost under $3,000.


<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(MattMunson @ Dec 30 2006, 11:57 PM) [snapback]1387537[/snapback]</div>
God bless the R2 builders group, but MAN do they need some help with slingin resin. OY.
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<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Sluis Van Shipyards @ Jan 3 2007, 12:13 PM) [snapback]1389291[/snapback]</div>
Ok timeout. :lol I'm just curious whether most of you guys already know how to do all the electronics or are just learning it along the way. I could build an R2, but the electronics would stop me in a sec.
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Prior to this project, I had pretty much zero experience with electronics. I mean, over the years, I've soldered an LED to a battery and a switch, but that's about it.

So when you watch the video of r2 walking and his head spinning, that was pretty much brand new knowledge. All i did was download a couple of wiring diagrams, ask a couple people a copule of questions, and then I got to work.

Though intimidating, it's actually not that tough. The extra bonus is that you've got the entire R2 builders club rooting for you and offering help, and they've ALL been down that exact same path before. So it's great.

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(TK9120 @ Jan 3 2007, 12:43 PM) [snapback]1389307[/snapback]</div>
Matt, do you know who's resin parts those are or did they just come with the kit you got? If you get resin parts from Keith Henry they are pretty much ready to prime and paint. I don't have any of his parts, but everyone raves about them. I just don't want people getting the wrong impression that resin parts from the R2 club are not good.

As far as price for building one, it depends on what you build it from. My parts are all aluminum. That really is overkill I think. If I were to do it again they would probably be resin. Between the A&A parts and Keith's resin parts, you have just about a complete droid. Probably cost under $3,000.


<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(MattMunson @ Dec 30 2006, 11:57 PM) [snapback]1387537[/snapback]
Click to expand...
God bless the R2 builders group, but MAN do they need some help with slingin resin. OY.
[/b]
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Nope, you're right. it was wrong of me to lump everyone in the builders club into that statement. From what I remember, the resin parts came from more than one builder, and I don't think there was a single part that met MY standards for "ready to paint".

Then again, it could just be me :)


But in other news, you're right. I think that if it's painted and isn't load bearing, there's not a NEED to use AL parts. I think the benefits of AL parts is that they're more resilient, they tend to be the exact spec size (whereas resin parts have usually shrunk a tad), and there's less work to do on them. On the other hand, they cost a ton more, so you do whatcha gotta do :)
 
Matt,

Looks great. Just found this thread and your work, photo's and video are things that keep the rest of us inspired to keep going. I hope to have my R2 at least on 3 legs by the end of the year. Keep the updates coming.

Matthew
 
Cool beans. i've never read Grant's book, but it sounds cool. Might have to check it out.

In other news, I've uploaded another video to youtube. This one is the front logic displays all hooked up, plugged in, and attached to my re-engineered resin surrounds:

killer video numero dos
 
very smooth.. I finished mine up last month and got pics of it next to the LFL R2 at SW- Where Science meets imagination here at omsi in portland. no electronics yet though. i got my foot motors and need to get brackets welded up, but it's good fun. if you're on the fence about doing one of these go for it. :)
omsi-wsmi029.jpg
 
Be careful Matt... you will shoot your eye out kid.

I owe you an email btw. Nice job so far.

-Bryan
 
Absolutely beautiful work. Reading your post makes me miss my mill and lathe.... still have the welding gear though.

Is your R2 entirely radio control? If so how many channels does it use?

The reason I ask is that I have one of these microcontrollers:
http://www.makingthings.com/products/KIT-MAKE-CTRL/

I'm currently using it in an animatronic costume project (Stargate related) but when I received it the first thought I had was that it would be really cool to use in an R2- especially since the only radio I have is four channel.

Jerome
 
I'm using the 12 channel futaba remote that seems to be very popular with the R2 gang. It's pretty cool, but currently, it is underused by me.

And yes, he's full R/C :)


A few updates, but no building over the past couple of days. I'm attending to logisitical issues, like getting paint. I had to do the "Drive all over town" thing, but I've rounded everything up. A bit more than 400 bucks in paint, clear coat, reducer, and supplies. Oy. That, I was not expecting. I think if I had it to do all over, I'd just use off the shelf paints. I doubt anyone other than a well trained R2 builder would be able to tell the difference, but oh well.

I also picked up a bunch of little things that I need to do the build up. Different contact cements, some epoxy, paint supplies, stuff like that. So even though I'm not building, I'm still workin' on the lil feller.
 
Prior to this project, I had pretty much zero experience with electronics. I mean, over the years, I've soldered an LED to a battery and a switch, but that's about it.
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That gives me hope. :) :lol
 
After being down for the count for a few days with a bad cold, I'm back with a vengeance in the shop. Still a bit sick, but you gotta do watcha gotta do. Check it:

First up, I cleaned up and sanded down the edges of the shoulder shims. That took much longer than expected, but they turned out great. I then slapped the shims on the mill to countersink the screw holes (yeah, you read that right) that will mount it to the leg:
mill.jpg



I then attached the hubs to the legs. They fit like crazy. Oh, forgot to mention that I also had to drill and tap the holes in the leg that the hubs get screwed into. I've gotten really good at aligning the drill press so that it drills EXACTLY where I want it to:
shoulders.jpg



Since I was on a roll in the "counter sinking" department, I went ahead and countersunk all of the drive system mounting holes on the feet:
feet.jpg




In between doing all of the above mentioned stuff, I polished off two resin holo eyes. These are great little kits, and went together very nicely. Just had to primer them, and paint. I expect to eventually replace these with the real things, but these will work fine until then. I lined the insides of the cups with felt so that they'd slide around a little better, and prevent scratching:
holo_eyes.jpg


Did some prep on some resin ports:
ports.jpg


Managed to wrap up the rear logic display too. Same thing as with the front. I had to mill out the surround to make it fit the shima board. I then drilled out mounting holes, tapped them, and cut cap head screws to custom lengths so that they'd fit perfectly:
rear_logic_back.jpg


Here's a pic of the rear logic array working. I still need to color in the LEDs so that it has the proper assortment of greens and reds:
rear_logic_working.jpg


Here's a video of the rear logic:
youtube fun

I did some more work on the battery details too. I used set screws to attach the little feet to the ends of the straps, or whatever they are. Just need to paint the blue details on those, and they're done:
battery_details.jpg


And last, I finished cleaning up and painting the under arm details. If I ever get around to it, I'll probably replace these with al ones too:
arm_pit_details.jpg



All told, it was about a ten hour day. Great stuff. Can't wait to get back in there tomorrow.
 
Taking it outside, huh? Hmph. ;)

Neat stuff. Concerning the problem you were having with the center foot:

I basically just bolted the angle to the foot where it touches when it rolls back on it's angle.[/b]
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WTH does that mean? :lol
 
Beats me man. i was tired when I wrote it :)

I've moved all of m pics over to my blog site, so if there are busted links within this thread (which I know there are), you can just go here and check out the whole sordid tale:

www.mattmunson.com/r2
 
Matt looks like a great project. Thanks for doing such a good job documenting it all for us to see.
r2d2line.gif
 
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