a short news update…

The building of the new arm/charger compartment is going well and the mechanical part as well as the props are almost done. What’s left is the fixing of the lighting which will be pretty cool looking. You’ll just have to trust me on that one, lol. Besides the building I’m attending my first official guest appearance at a Scifi Convention. My previous event I just went to show him off. This time they have asked. Its taking place between the 7th -8th of march in Gothenberg. The picture below is a snapshot of the (Swedish) website thats holding the event with pictures and a little info about me and my artoo appearing. Isn’t that cool? Nope…nooooooooo pressure

new design updates in the works…

Well, I guess I’m on a roll. I’m now going to make an “electro magnetic power charge arm”. Wow, that was a mouth full, lool. I’ve seen this in episode 6 Return of the Jedi where artoo zapps a few ewoks and free’s Leia. A few other builders have made a charger connetion behind that panel, which actually artoo has. So I’m planning to make both charger connection and a charger arm. The arm will extend out when the panel opens (including the appropriate bells and whistles). The hardest part is to see what the arm actually looks like. I bought the latest SW blueprint booklet, which has a great diagram of artoo and viewed EP 6 over and over. I will have to do an approximate version (about 90% accurate). Becasue I’m doing another SciFi Con the first weekend in March in Gotherburg, I thought I would add this second addition and do some general tweaking. After that I have been invited to attend a Model Expo in Helsinki, Finland the first weekend in April. Anyway, here are the design and installation pics, enjoy…

Periscope finally installed….

Well, I did plan to have this done last weekend but…some of the best made plans…blah blah blah

Anyway, Its finally done. The scope itself is from the resin kit that you can order from resin parts. Because of that great silver paint I can get here in Sweden you would never guess it was resin. The periscope crystal I made from a block of plexiglass actually. I just used my dremel and shaped it accordingly. I even shaped the smaller orange/amber crystal with the dremel. Thanks for the tip Chris. It only took an hour from start to finish. The lift mechanism works great and no issues except I never really planed to install a periscope so I didn’t leave much room but its in there, lol. I’ll plan better when I start on my next artoo. In all the hardest part was install the electronics. I think I have pretty small fingers but WOW…it was a very tight squeeze. All thats left for me to do with this is to clean up the wiring add a power cutoff switch for the periscope lighting and re-install the rear psi lighting. I had to remove it to fit it all in. I’m also going to give the dome a few new coats of silver and blue paint. It took a beating while I was working on the periscope. I have a new metal dome on order so this shouldn’t be a problem in the future. Anyway enjoy the short video and if I haven’t written about it just ask

My new periscope mechanism….

Before I show any pictures I should explain the details. First, forget my original idea. The motor I used was too small and too unreliable. So I bought the LEGO Technic 8287 motor which comes with a large set of gears and staffs to contol the speed. If you compare this to the vex servo, which a lot of builders use, you get a lot more parts to mech and test with as well as a battery box in the Lego Technic kit. All of which is almost the same price. I’m also using a draw-slide  mechanism as the main component. The major difference to my previous idea is that its mounted not on the base ring of the dome as everyone else. I mounted the entire mechanism from the top of the inside of the dome using a single butterfly nut. I figured because i already had a screw there why not put it to good use.This is both stronger and light than te original idea. Below are a few picture to give you and idea what i was trying to explain. I’ll post a video after the weekend showing it in action.