70th Explorers Garrison: Forums

Sweet! put some big guns on it!

Once I was (finally) able to get into the T3 builders yahoo group they had true dimensioned drawings. I have decided to make it full size for effect!

Did a test of the motor controls the other day. They didn't work so I am re-writing the control program in C instead of visual basic. Hopefully I can do another motor test Friday.

Darn...

lets just leave it at the test didn't work! Back to the drawing board.

doh!

Hey Tony, I was flipping through the channels last night and I came across a system for show cars that controls all of the windows, locks, electric accessories etc for custom autos. The cool part is that is was all blue tooth and the control unit was..get this... your cell phone. I can't remember the name of it (big help, I know) but it shouldn't be too hard to find. I couldn't help but think it'd be a cool way to secrety control a droid at cons. I just thought I'd share. Good luck with your droid. We're all watching.

I am probably going to skip the control surfaces for right now in the design process and move on to the actual construction of the legs and body. This will give me time to work out the bugs with the controller and not halt progress all together.

I don't know if it was a over current problem or a defective chip but lets just say that it wasn't a good thing.

Once the controller is working correctly moving the droid around will be just a matter of firing up the laptop and driving it via remote desktop (over adhoc wifi). I think sometimes I expect too much of myself. I gave myself a year to complete this project and for some reason I keep pushing myself to complete it faster than that. I just need to slow down with it and stop pushing myself.

I hear you there. Slow down. . . breathe. . . and try not to cut off any fingers.

Cmndr Falken wrote:I gave myself a year to complete this project and for some reason I keep pushing myself to complete it faster than that. I just need to slow down with it and stop pushing myself.

I gave myself 2 years to complete R2, and I still don't know if that will be enough. It'd be nice to finish it earlier though! Hope you get your bugs worked out soon.

One of the things I think we all experience is the excitement to get a project over and done with so we can see the end results. I hate that when that happens. We get so engrossed in projects that we tend to get away from the fun part of life and building. Setting projects aside for a while to do other things helps me get back in the swing of things to complete a project another day.

mrivorey wrote:

Cmndr Falken wrote:I gave myself a year to complete this project and for some reason I keep pushing myself to complete it faster than that. I just need to slow down with it and stop pushing myself.

I gave myself 2 years to complete R2, and I still don't know if that will be enough. It'd be nice to finish it earlier though! Hope you get your bugs worked out soon.

for most of the R2 builders I have met their R2 is an ongoing project for them they are never really done. Most take 3 or 4 years to even get them to a point where they are showable.

Well to a degree I am back on track. I reviewed my design and specs with the company that makes the controller (dimension engineering). They said that my design was within the normal operating specs of the device and agreed to ship me a replacement controller. Maybe I will have the base frame (the droid's hind quarters) built so I have a place to put the controller when it arrives.

Wooohoo!

Sometimes I need to take a break from assembling and painting Warhammer Fantasy figures so I don't get sloppy (Still looks like crap though... ).

Well I made a full size template for the sides of the rear feet. I will take a picture of the template later but lets just say T3M4 is going to be a big droid.

(the bottom of the template is 16.5 inches long and it is nearly 10 inches tall. His feet are going to be six inches wide.)

I did make more progress on the computer side while I am waiting on the replacement controller. I was able to interface my wireless xbox 360 controller to the control program I wrote. Each of the colored buttons and the start button represents a sound and the D-pad is used to drive the unit. The left and right bumper buttons transition from low speed to high speed. The wireless unit was able to function through two walls from the far end of my house. Using the Xbox controller will keep me from having to have two laptops. I will only need the one laptop inside the droid.

I think my wife is very tired of hearing T3 sound effect files already

Well I figured I would post some pics of my progress

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=4 ... =771234618

The side panels for the body and feet are cut and edge plained. Going to try and make these 2D panels into a 3D model over the weekend


Edit moved photos to facebook for faster load times.