Tuesday, September 26, 2006

Minor Repairs

Today I worked on some minor repairs involving my most recent nemesis, silicone.

On the way to R2LA IV, I heard the distinctive "thump" of parts falling off my droid while en route to the event. Sure enough, two of the cylinder wedges had fallen off. I did a quickie re-silicone of those parts, and tonight the tape came off and they seem to be holding.

I still haven't been able to get the dome panel for the front logics to stick, but I'm trying again.


2 comments:

Calvin Thomas said...

Sorry, That does'nt want to stick,
Must be something on the dome.
I've got an idea I want to shoot pass you on the front logics since the shop refused to remill them for me.
I've got the dome piece suspended in the air and set my logic surrounds in the 2 holes. In this position the 2 led boards hit each other, But I put a clear piece of plastic and crossed over both surrounds and it provides a flat area for the led boards to set flat and not hit each other.
You can't tell from the outside that they're not flat against the surrounds.
If the clear is larger than the 2 surrounds, It may provide away to lock them to the inner dome.
But I don't know how to lock them down.
Any suggestions?
Calvin

Victor Franco said...

> Sorry, That does'nt want to stick,
> Must be something on the dome.

Yes, I think you are probably correct. On one of my tries to get the panel to stick, I used acetone to clean the surface of both the dome and the back of the panel, and then lightly sanded both, and the darn thing still didn't stick. This is a totally silly problem that I'm sure I'll solve soon, maybe with a different adhesive, like Gorilla Glue or something.

> I've got an idea I want to shoot pass you on the
> front logics since the shop refused to remill
> them for me.

> I've got the dome piece suspended in the
> air and set my logic surrounds in the 2 holes.
> In this position the 2 led boards hit each other,
> But I put a clear piece of plastic and crossed
> over both surrounds and it provides
> a flat area for the led boards to set flat and not hit
> each other.
> You can't tell from the outside that they're not flat
> against the surrounds.

Good, I was wondering if the gap between the surrounds and the logics was noticeable.

> If the clear is larger than the 2 surrounds, It may
> provide away to lock them to the inner dome.

> But I don't know how to lock them down.
> Any suggestions?

Well, you might be able to combine your idea with what I was starting to work on, which is a rectangular housing for the logics, that will be supported by a stand. It's the top picture at:

http://vfranco.blogspot.com/2006/09/worked-on-front-logic-harness-jb.html

I had been patterning my design after Mike Senna's (as usual). Mike's surrounds are from a prior run, and may be slightly larger than ours. Also, a friend of his did a pair of custom boards, based on the Carl's Electronic's PIC Flasher kit, so his logics are larger than ours, and don't fit into the PVC box. He had to run wires from the logic board to the LED board to connect across the greater distance.

Keep up the good work Calvin, and I will continue to monitor your progress.

-Victor