Extra support for Shoulders

If your not doing the 2-3-2 movement you won't need this area beefed up.
I'm adding extra to this area and I'm also going to add 2 more shoulder plates
to the inside of Dave's shoulder plate which will make this area 3/8 thick
for the outer leg bearings to mount.
I just figure the movement will add stress to this area and it needs to be strong.

I started fitting the bearing into the outer leg.
What I had to do was cut a new size sideplate that Dave E. uses in his build.
The plate had to be mount 3/8 further into the leg opening to make up the
difference that the bearing used.
The bearing has more than enough turning radius and has very little play.
I used Dave's blueprint to center the bearing and you can see the drilled
holes that Dave marks on the blueprints.
I have 2 drive system in mind and hopefully one of them will work.
I guess I should warn everyone not to try this until I get it all worked out.

Leg Bearings

I bought 2 of these 6 inch bearings from Rockler, I will use these for the outer legs on R5. Since the legs won't have to move a great distance to do the 2-3-2 and the bearing weight rating is more than enough for a styrene droid, I'm sure they will work.
I will have to trim the square at the points to fit in the droid.
The good part about this bearing is it's only 1/4 inch thick which will be easy
to modify the frame to accept the bearing.

2nd Bottom Plate

This is the 2nd bottom plate that gets glued to the bottom of the frame.
This makes the bottom 1/4 inch thick and much stronger.
I used 3 screws in the center to help me align the plates together.
The only thing is if I had to do this again, I think I would have just used a
1/4 inch thick plate instead of laminating the 2- 1/8 inch plates together.
I'm sure Dave does this to eliminate the need for additional styrene.

Top Plate and Shoulder Plates

The top plate has holes marked that you will need to drill for the dome bearing
and the motor mount in the rear of the droid.
Lay the top plate down with the scribed marks facing up and set the frame on
top then glue all the top verticals in place.
After this is done and dried, You can glue in the Shoulder Plates in the sides.
The shoulder plates are for the outer legs to attach.

Top Rear Verticals

We glued the top rear verticals in place and it's the same process as
the others.
Once these dry, We can glue the top ring into place.

Front Vent Area

This area was alittle bit more tricky than the others.
Dave E. say's to pay close attention to this area and make sure you get the alignment
very accurate or the frame will try and twist.
I'm pretty positive that we got it right, But I won't know until I move on
with the build.

3rd Ring & Front Door Vertical

In the pictures from bottom to top, You can see the blueprint on the 3rd ring
and where you will need to scribe and cut the ring.
The next picture shows the ring after the cuts have been made and this leaves
you with 3 usable parts. The ring we are using now is the large ring for the rear of the droid.
Here again you work your way around the ring making sure everything lines up.
We also glued 2 Door Verticals at the front part of the ring.
These add support for the 2 large doors on the droid and you can see it also
adds support for the next ring plate.

2nd Set of Verticals

Now we start gluing the next set of vertical plates on top of the 2nd ring.
There are 8 verticals and like the 1st set, Take your time and glue them
around the backside of the droid frame.
Make sure again to check them for square and flush the outer edge with the
2nd ring.

Baseplate Ankle Insets & 2nd Plate

On the bottom picture, You can see the Ankle Insets being glued into place.
This area provides a clearing for the outer legs to pass the body if your
building your droid to stand on 2 feet and then move to the 3 leg position.
This movement is known as the 2-3-2.

The next picture shows the 2nd ring being glued into position.
There's 10 spots that have to be glued and the way I did this one
is to lay the plate on top of the verticals and align the plate as
best as you can with the scribed marks facing up.
Glue 1 vertical then after it dries glue another vertical across
from the one you just glued. Make sure you pay close attention to all
the scribes as you work around the plate.
I left the Ankle Inserts as the last parts that get glued after the
other eight.
I also used the Weldon can as a weight to keep the verticals in place as I glued
them.

Baseplate Verticals

In the bottom picture it shows how you start gluing the 1st set of verticals to the bottom plate.
We bought some small angle brackets to help support the plate as the glue starts
to set, We're also using a small square to check the parts as we glue.

As you look at the pictures from bottom to top, You can see how the process gets
repeated 8 times for a total of 8 verticals.
We now have 2 Ankle Insets to glue to the bottom plate.
These are lined up with the straight edges on the bottom plate.
When you cut the bottom plate you will have 2 small parts left over and these
get glued to the Ankle Insets and they provide support for the skins.

Frame Cutting

We spent most of the day cutting out more frame parts.
I'm not going to post pictures of the parts being cut,
Because the blueprints do a very good job of showing how
to cut the parts.
I will be showing the parts cut with the blueprint still attached
to the part and how the construction is done.
So far, We have used 1 4x8 sheet of Styrene to build the frame.
1 Sheet of 3mm Styrene cost $32.00 and you will have some
leftovers for small parts.
More to come :o)

Bottom plate

Once you bond your blueprint to the Styrene,
You can get ready for the routing.
If you notice, There are 3 small holes in the center of the circle.
These are marked on the blueprint and I used a 1/8 drill bit to mark
the location of each.
The outer 2 holes are for the center leg to mount and the center hole
is your pilot hole for the router pin.
Carefully run the router around the 20x20 inch Styrene plate and you will get your
rough cut using the R9 pin hole.
Then using the 9 pin hole, Run around the plate again and you will get a nice
smooth plate.

Now lightly scribe the lines marked on the blueprint.
These lines will be used as a mark for the vertical plates to be glued.
The solid lines on each side get cut completely off the plate and saved for
a future plate.

Now you can peel the blueprint off the plate and I lightly sand the sides
of the plate, Just to make it nice and clean.

Router Jig

This is the router jig I made to cut the circles.
It's made of 1/4 styrene and you can see in the pictures how I bolted
it to the router.
I also have marked holes in the plate for a pin to keep it in place while
we slide it around on top of the 3mm Styrene.
I made the 1st cut with the R9 hole which is a ruff cut and then
I use the 9 hole for the finish cut.
This gives me a smooth cut all around the 3mm circle.

R5 Skins

And this is how it looks after cutting.
I only cut the areas where I will have something mounted or a opening for something to open.
When your working the skins you need to decide what will open on your droid.
I will only have one large door opening and the charge port opening.



Since the 3mm (1/8) Styrene has not arrived yet, We decided to work on the skins.
We all took turns using the cutting table and I've got 1 inner skin almost finished.
I went ahead and cut the sides, bottom and top down to the print.
But this is how it looks with the blueprint spray tacked to the styrene.

Once the frame material arrives, I'll have tons of pics to post.

Ryobi Trimmer

This is the Trimmer I bought at Home Depot for around $80.00.
It's small and compact, So it should be easy to use.
The bottom of the Trimmer has 4 small screws that the large plate mount, But I
plan to use these holes for mounting the Trimmer upside down on a wood surface
to cut the frame circles. You can see the large plate has the same mounting holes.
I won't use the large plate except to get the measurements for mounting.

Once I get the Trimmer setup, I can start cutting my frame.
Everything I'm doing to build this droid is the Dave E. design and
he made a Trimmer setup just like this setup.

Finally Posting

Ok Guy's,
I'm finally getting ready to actually start the build of my R5.
We're ordering the styrene this week and I will start posting the progress.
There will be tons of pictures, I'm trying to make this build as a pictorial
for other builders to follow.
As soon as the plastic arrives, I will get started.