Started Prepping Spare Foot Motors

You never know when you might need a spare foot motor. I have two of them, so I figured now is as good a time as any to prepare them for future installation.

The NPC 2212 motors come with an axel through the motor that protrudes on both sides. One side needs to be cut off completely, while the other side needs to be shortened in order for the motor to fit into the droid's foot shell and battery box.



I used my handy angle grinder with the cutoff wheel for this task.



I moved over to a shorter table to get a better angle, and finish the job.



I then repeated the process on the second motor.



I removed the left foot and motor from droid #1, to temporarily pull the gear so I could use it to measure where to cut the other side of the axel.



I chopped the other side of the axel down to size on the first motor and did a test-fit of the gear.



I repeated the process for the other motor, and then it was time to move onto the grinding phase. Besides axel trimming, some of the edges of the motor need to be ground down to fit into the battery box. I inspected the existing motor to see what areas I had already ground down.



I swapped the cutoff wheel with the grinding wheel on the angle grinder, and got to work grinding material off the motors.



I compared the existing motor (bottom) to the new one (top), and they look like they mostly match.



I only ground down one of the two motors, and I still need to test the fit in the foot shells to see if I've removed enough material. I hope to get to that very shortly.

Star Wars Night at Dodger Stadium - 2024

Tonight was Star Wars Night at Dodger Stadium, and R2 was there to help celebrate the occasion.



I arrived a little before the 4pm call time. Usually I park near the stadium offices, but this time they had me park behind center field, closer to where R2 would be stationed for pictures. I met up with the rest of the group near the changing area, and watched a few minutes of batting practice while the characters suited up.



Around 5pm we headed to our photo-op stations. I unloaded R2 from the droidmobile and drove him to his location. A line quickly formed, and soon it was pictures, pictures, pictures!



Around 6:30pm R2 and I made our way to the area directly behind the center field fence, where another group of fans got pictures. In preparing for this game, I made sure that all the electrical connections were good to go, and they were.



R2 was joined by Darth Vader and the Emperor. Around 6:41 we stepped off onto the warning track, and made our way around the field to the home plate area.



Throwing out the first pitch would be none other than LucasFilm head Kathleen Kennedy. I was able to say hi to her and hop into a group photo with the characters.



I also had my annual meet-up with legendary Dodgers photographer Jon SooHoo.



Just before the first pitch the characters gathered with Kathleen near the third base foul line for more pics and video.



Following that, the characters gathered on the grass behind home plate for the "It's time for Dodgers baseball" announcement.



Once that was done, it was time to motor off the field and to the wheelchair elevator, but not before I got a picture of the dugout.



Next, it was up the wheelchair lift and on out to get R2 back to the droidmobile. I repositioned the car near the offices to avoid having to drive the droid too far.



The Dodgers gave us seats for the game, and I watched the Dodgers close out a 6-3 win over the Marlins.



R2 improved his record to 12-3 with the Dodgers. We hope to be back next year to keep it going.

Main Power Switch Solder Joint Repair at Mike's

Today I took droid #1 over to Mike Senna's house to have him kindly resolder the connection from the main power switch to the negative bus bar. Yesterday I experienced a failure of that solder joint, and rather than possibly trigger the same failure in the future, I decided to ask Mike to do the solder job, as I trust his solder joints for heavy duty applications.

Time to break out the big (solder) guns.



I unscrewed the switch from inside the droid, and fed it down through the skirt. That loose black wire is hanging to the right, above the ankle cylinder.



It took Mike all of one minute to do the repair.



It's dark in there, but the repair is on the lower right.



R2 was up and running again, like his old self. I took him home and he's a happy droid. Thanks to Mike for the help.

Star Wars Night at Angel Stadium - 2024 (+ Bonus Nightmare)

This weekend is Star Wars Weekend at Angel Stadium in Anaheim, CA, and R2(s) showed up to help with festivities.



I arrived and unloaded a little after 3pm.



I mentioned R2(s) above because Brian Dodds brought his R2 last night and tonight, while I joined him tonight, along with Sean Christophiades and his REX droid, and James Henley and his Chopper.



We were also joined by many members of various Star Wars costuming clubs.



The Angels always do a nice job of feeding us. Pizza, sodas and water, which work for me!



Around 5pm we rolled out to greet arriving fans in the stadium's Rose Garden area.



We spent about 45 minutes providing photo opportunities, and the fans certainly enjoyed getting pictures with the characters.



Next, we headed to the bullpen area behind the left field fence, to get ready to do our procession around the warning track.



While we were waiting, R2 got a picture with R2's Angels.



Angels pitching coach Barry Enright was signing autographs. One of our characters asked if he remembered being in the stands asking players for autographs, and he chuckled and said yes.



At 6:10pm, we stepped off onto the warning track to do our thing. Our path would take us along the warning track, from the left field foul pole to the right field foul pole, by way of home plate. Queue ominous music here.



So. Everything was going smoothly. In fact, R2 was at the head of the pack, making his way around the field. He got about 3/4 of the way around, when suddenly he stopped dead in his tracks. Both the feet and dome seemed dead. Needless to say, a good amount of worry set in. I walked over to R2 and tried power-cycling, but I knew this would almost certainly not help. It didn't.

I turned to Sean who was driving his Rex droid and told him it looked like I had some sort of power failure, and I would have to push R2 the rest of the way. By this time the other characters were catching up, and they realized there was a problem with R2 as well, and offered to help. The only thing they could do at that point was hold my transmitter, as I did the Walk of Shame and pushed R2 the rest of the way along the warning track, until we got to the tunnel just past the right field foul pole. Luckily I was able to somewhat bury myself amidst the other characters, but I have no doubt that many thousands (if not tens of thousands) of fans saw me pushing R2.



Once I had R2 in the tunnel area, I immediately removed the dome to see what went wrong. I checked the battery connections, and they looked good. I checked the power bus bars, and they looked good. Then I checked the main power on/off switch, and I found my culprit. One of the solder joints from the switch to the negative power bus bar had separated from the terminal on the switch. It's hard to tell from the picture, but that was the problem. I verified that by touching the wire back to the terminal and power came back on.



Last March I had reworked this switch to support in-droid charging. Apparently the solder work was good enough to last over 13 months, but today, while driving on smooth warning track dirt, it decided it had had enough.

A couple of the other costumed members asked how they could help, and I asked if someone could grab my cart from the changing room. Sean and his droid waited with me, and about 20 minutes later R2 was on his cart and back in the changing room, (mostly) covered up in mortification.



While I did have my toolbox with my butane soldering iron and could have possibly fixed the problem then and there, I didn't want to take a chance of a second failure, plus Brian had his R2 there as well, so I decided to call it an early night and head home. I let Mike Senna know about this problem, as he is good at making solder joints that won't fail, so I plan to head over to his house tomorrow to get this hopefully permanently fixed.

If you would have asked me what a nightmare scenario with R2 would be, this would be near the top of the list. Although having lived through it, it wasn't as horrible as it could have been. We were almost done on the warning track, and I simply did what I had to do in pushing the droid the rest of the way. I think with age comes perspective, and it's just one weird failure after well over 400 successful events. I'll get it fixed and R2 will be up and running in no time.

The Angels didn't have a much better night, they lost 16-5 to the Minnesota Twins. R2's record with the Angels is now 2-6. Maybe I should skip next year for both our sakes.