Thursday, November 11, 2010

Dome Switch Work

The back of R2's dome has a couple of dome "bumps" on it. Following Mike Senna's example (and my droid #1), I've decided to use Radio Shack switches (part #275-693) to double as the bumps, and as on/off switches for the dome electronics. One switch will serve as master power for the six D cells in the dome, and the other will serve as a trigger for the text message on the top front logic display.

(Yes, I realize there are a lot of other choices for switches and dome bumps, but I am lazy and am going with what I know.)

These switches are of the correct diameter for the holes in the dome (3/4"), but the bezel is square instead of round.



With droid #1, I filed and sanded these round by hand. Now that I have my drill press and the sanding drum attachments, I can at least remove most of the material without much effort.



The sanding drum did a nice job of removing the vast majority of the material.



I used 100 and 400 grit sand paper to finish them off.



I will likely need to sand the threads down on the bottom part too, as the fit is just a little too tight through the holes in the dome. And of course, I'll paint them blue.

2 comments:

Paul said...

Don't do it! My biggest regret on my R2 ! I can (almost) endure the kids tugging on the aluminum holoprojectors, but relentlessly powering off and on the lighting, no!

Victor Franco said...

I totally know what you mean Paul. It annoys me too, and is the one big drawback to this approach.

A couple of factors in my decision:

1) I don't want to run wires from the dome to the body, so I need separate power to the dome; thus, switches must also be somewhere on the dome.

2) I would rather not have to remove the dome to turn off and on the dome electronics, so I need something on the outside of the dome. I could go with something that is less obviously an on/off switch, but most or all of the flat switches out there are momentary switches, requiring additional logic for them to behave as if they are in a steady on/off state.

Since I am (as stated) lazy, I went with the same thing as droid #1. I reserve the right to regret this decision and do something else in the future. :)