Episode II: a new droid

I couldn't resist to write such a title, sorry! 

The sanding process of my R2 unit is a really long task, so I wished to find something else to make while not working on that project.

I thought to try to design a droid from the Star Wars universe, but it should have been something "new", something that no one had already tried to make by 3D printing. My choiche was a TT-8L doorkeeper from episode VI.

Restraining bolt

Just another small gadget I designed for my droid while paused the sanding process due to the hot weather: a restraining bolt.

An easy printing gadget that needs no supports at all and it's also easy to paint.

Printing ended!

My R2 unit is not completed yet and it will take several month to the finish line, but finally I reached a milestone: I printed the last piece of this project!

The computer interface - 1

As this droid is equipped with an interface arm, I thought it could be nice to make it a "working" item, so I started designing a computer interface like the one seen on ep.IV inside the Death Star.

Unfortunately I found no measurements, so I had to guess them from the movie frames...

The feet - 1

While waiting for weather to be good enough for me to work outside on the body, I decided to continue the printing task.

I chose to go on with the feet, as they are simple enough to print. Also the new drive system designed by Michael Baddeley is quite better than the previous one, so I wished to giv it a try...

Fusion furnace - 2

At last the fusion furnace is complete! The 3D printable parts are on thingiverse and can be freely downloaded of course.

In this post I will put some instructions to build the furnace, so it will be a bit long. Note that almost everything is 3D printed. You just need some nuts and bolts, some tubes and a couple of connectors (of course also glue, putty, sandpaper and paint).

At the bottom of this post you will find links to the non printable parts and to the models on thingiverse.

Let's start with the printing tips...

Fusion furnace - 1

I finished printing the body a couple of months ago, but now the droid is on hold. The body needs heavy sanding, priming and painting and I cannot do this inside my house, so I need a better weather to go on.

Anyway I am still developing something about this droid and after a bit of research I decided to build a replica of the fusion furnace seen in ep.V on Dagobah. I think you will agree that a droid is almost useless without a good recharging unit!

The lift system - 2

Finally I managed to test the lift system with the periscope. I was a bit worried because the periscope is much heavier than the life scanner, so the servo and the gears could not be enough to lift it.

The body - 1

Well, this will be the most intensive part of the whole droid. The body is made up of several different parts to be printed and most of them needs 3-4 hours of printing (sometimes more).

Anyway the building is a quite linear task, so there should be no problems or at least they should be really few. 

My only concern is about ABS warping. With the new printer and the enclosure this has been quite reduced, but still visible in the biggest parts. I will surely need to make some post printing fixes...

That's what I have done until now...

The lift system - 1

Here again. After some time without writing posts now I can go on with some progress for my Astromech. Now it's time to think about a lift system for the life scanner and the periscope.

The periscope - 2

I completed the painting and the assembly of the droid periscope. Now it's just a matter of putting some "special effect" on the inside...

The dome - 3

At last the boring part is ended. All the sanding, filling and painting tasks are done and my droid dome is going to be complete soon!

My 3D printer is broken

At last my printer died. After more than 3 years of incredible jobs I need to replace it as fixing the one I own would cost a bit too much.

It performed incredibly well considering that it was a cheap model. I hoped to make it last a bit longer, but that's ok, I can cope with this.

The dome - 2

After printing and gluing all the dome pieces it cames the tedious part. You need to remove the 3D printing artifacts and the defects to make the parts as smooth as possible and this could be a long lasting task...

The periscope - 1

This is another feature I wish to add to the R2 dome. In this case I found a really good model on Thingiverse, but I changed something anyway.

The biggest mod respect to the part found on Thingiverse is the top removal. This piece will be glued to a cover, so I see no need to print this also in the periscope. This way the model is also easier to print.

The holoprojectors - 1

The holoprojectors are standard features of an Astromech. I kept the original design from mr Baddeley as it's of course perfect for his R2D2 dome design. The frontal one will also move for sure, but I'm still not sure if it's worth for the other two...

The logic displays - 1

For the logic displays on the web you can find several solutions, but in the end you just need to use tons of leds. Unfortunately I hate soldering, so I wish to keep it at minimum.

I found a nice (for me) solution.

The life scanner - 1

One of the features I want to add to my R2 unit is the life scanner. I found several models on the internet, but none of them satisfied me, even if they are really beautiful, so I just designed one by myself...

The dome - 1

The "easiest" part to print of this R2D2 is the dome. It's made up of several pieces that must be printed, glued together, sanded and painted. As I wrote in the introduction, there is a long post produtcion work to do if you want a good loking Astromech...

Intro

Since the first Star Wars movie in 1977, when I was a child, one of my dreams was to built and Astromech. For years this was just a dream, even if I followed several times the progresses of other people on the web, particularly from the R2 Builders Club.

Unfortunately, the parts weren't easily found, at least in Italy, so I always posponed my intents to build this robot...