Sunday, April 29, 2018

R2D2 update - Legging it


R2D2 building continues with one of his legs. Looking at the model before all the casing goes on, it looks pretty impressive. The weight is certainly satisfying.

To fit the part-work ethos, there's quite a lot of cast plates bolted together for the main supports. The wheel also has to be assembled and runs in rather nice chunky bearings.

No assembly is required for the motor/gearbox which I could find uses for in other models. On the back of the motor is a magnetic sensor which presumably allows the internal computer to work out how far the little droid has moved.

Everything has gone together with the exception of one of the motor plates in the foot where some homes needed to be opened out to accept the screws. I'm assuming that the right screws were used but there are quite a lot and it's not always that obvious. DeAgostini have sent spares after a request so we aren't worrying too much as long as the thing goes together.

Hint: Make sure there is a bit of slack in the wires above the motor. The casing is quite tight here and the screws had to be slackened off to allow the wire to be pulled down a bit.

A test cable allows the motor to be run, and with that gearbox, it's a torquey little beast. I couldn't grip the wheel tight enough to stall it, even on 4 volts!

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