Classic MPC C-3PO and R2-D2 Uber Build - COMPLETED!

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Randy13 said:

All this work you’re doing is amazing. You’re covering details I never would have thought of and you’re also doing an excellent job with your step-by-step documentation.

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Thanks Randy... love the work you're doing on the slave 1 too... I've got the cut-away falcon sitting in my closet with the falconkits cockpit/landing gear/side greebles package just waiting for me to put together. I think it would end up taking me close to forever to do up the way I want, but as soon as I'm done with this one I'm gonna work on the biker scout GG style and see how close I can come to having my own $500 statue on the cheap! If I get close, I may actually have to make a mold of the biker and make some copies for people who'd be interested, but that's down the road I suppose... I'm sure the rubber RTV and resin costs would be thru the roof for that size! Would have to charge an arm and a leg just to recover costs!

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SUCCESS!!! YUREKA!!! FINALLY!!!!!!!! I got my 4060 chips today in the mail and immediately began to mess with them. Using Grendals awesome LED lighting tutorial as a guide (You do some amazing work John... thanks guy... your vids are really informative... you can check it out here: Lighting Tutorial: 4060 Pro's and Con's) I was finally able to get the lighting circuit to do what I wanted it to do (well as close as I could get to it anyway) and I made one set from one chip (the 3 logic and 2 mood lights) working. So now all I gotta do is transfer the entire thing to a perf board twice and I should have the entire lighting set up and ready to run! So without further ado, here's the video of the working circuit I got actually working!

Working R2 Circuit - YouTube

Oh and Tom, I definately plan on getting a bag of chips and a bag of leds from ya soon... just have been really strapped lately. If any of you out there want to give this kinda thing a try, I highly suggest getting a bag of chips and Leds from ModelManTom... You can get his stuff here:

Welcome to Modeler's Brand Hobby Supplies.

OK... now things should really start moving along. This has been driving me absolutely CRAZY trying to get this to work and I would like to thank both JOhn and Tom for all your advice and help in trying to get this circuit of mine to work. Now that it does, I can finally move forward! More to come!

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I've spent the last couple of days transferring my new circuit design to perf board. But to give you all an idea of how the circuit is set up, here's the schematic:



My soldering skills leave alot to be desired. I haven't done this much soldering since I was a boy making kit radios. But back then I had the advantage of having much better eyesight! Something I discovered with these particular chips is that you don't need a resistor or a capacitor to make them work. I found a set of 5 of these CD4060BE chips on eBay for just under $4.00 and they were awesome! So, after testing everything out on the breadboard, I let it run most of the day to see if it would burn out or faulter in anyway, thank god, everything stayed working and flashing with no problems!



Here we go... I began by soldering in the main power leads.




Next, I began soldering all the LED leads where they should go.




I'm hoping I don't have a crossed connection somewhere. My soldering skills aren't the best. If this fails I'll probably end up wiring everything together off board and just stuff it all up under the dome. Next I'll be soldering all the LEDs and then I'll test it out. Wish me luck!

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Looking at the pics of this, I probably could have put this all on a much smaller round board! Oh well... I know it'll fit so that's what's most important.

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FYI. The hole in the front of the skirt in the reference picture (the ILM R2) was once used for a camera. They tried it as a way of seeing and steering while on the set. It never worked properly so the idea was abandoned and they never filled the holes.

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WOW. your attention to detail is amazing. I wish i had your patience.

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redirk2 said:

FYI. The hole in the front of the skirt in the reference picture (the ILM R2) was once used for a camera. They tried it as a way of seeing and steering while on the set. It never worked properly so the idea was abandoned and they never filled the holes.

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Oh really... that's something I never knew before! That's pretty cool... and I'm glad I spotted it. Will make this even more accurate! Thanks for that tidbit of info guy!

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coop42cole said:

WOW. your attention to detail is amazing. I wish i had your patience.

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I wish I had patience... I want this thing to be done yesterday... but some things I have to wait for and it drives me crazy! Like waiting for paint or glue to dry, wait for something to arrive in the mail (like the chips). Somethings you have no control over... so I just try to do something else while I wait. Thanks for the compliment bro... Glad you are enjoying the build!

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Now you're taking this kit to another level. Can't wait to see more!

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Randy13 said:

Now you're taking this kit to another level. Can't wait to see more!

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Thanks guy... appreciate the love!

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Quick update....



I've got all the LEDs hooked up and soldered into place (except the holoprogector light) and was having some problems getting them to stay lit. IT would run on one chip for a little while and then the other, and if I touched the chip they would run for a little while and then stop until I touched it again. I discovered something weird. As soon as I touched pin 11 and 10 together of either chip the flashing would increase really rapidly for a little while and then stop again. But if I touched pin 11 with any kind of metal (a wire, a knife blade, etc) it would start running again with no problems for a little while. I think there might be a problem with the resistance value of pin 11 without a resistor on it. But I discovered if I put a wire on pin 11 that wasn't connected to anything at all, it seemed to be running just fine. I took a couple of the spare capacitors I got and just hooked one end to pin 11 and left the other end free. So far it seems to be running fine with no problems. I'm doing a burn in test for awhile to make sure it will continue to run without any further problems. So far, it's been going over an hour like this and hasn't stopped at all. Will keep everyone updated as I continue to work on this.

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Finally after many hours of testing, failing, screaming, kicking, crying, and using lots of foul langauge... THE CIRCUIT IS COMPLETE AND WORKING!!! Just got to wrap the leads so they don't short and I can put this into the dome and finish this baby! I put together a nice long video explaining all the lights and problems I had. You can check it out here:


Working LED Circuit - YouTube

Even got the Holoprojector light in! I would appreciate any and all comments!

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BIG UPDATE:
Yesterday I did a test lighting of the fiber optic panels and I gotta say, this is gonna look great. Please pardon the blurriness of the vid but it don't focus too good on the flashing lights. However, they really look awesome. Here's a quick vid of how the panels look.

Fiber Optic Light Test

Busy day today with a bit of damage control. One of the Blue LEDs that I had been using was an old one from another kit I was working on awhile back, had snapped at the base and I was scrambling because I didn't have anymore. First I figured I might be able to get away with using a white one painted blue and it looked like it would work, and then I remembered, one of the old toy circuits I was going to use at the beginning of the build had a working blue on it, and I hooked it up and it works no problem. Crisis averted and all is well with the world. I got some liquid electrical tape. This is like concentrated plastic, and works great to seal your wires. Just brush it on and let it dry. Works awesomely. I highly recommend it for anyone working on electronics in this scale. Saves alot of time.




So, my main focus today was working on the mood lights. I still had to fabricate something to hold the 2 3mm LEDs for both the front and rear mood lights. So, I looked around and racked my brain and finally came up with an answer. Using an old drinking straw I cut a couple of small pieces off (about 1/2 an inch long a peice).



Then, I wrapped them in aluminum metal duct tape to reduce the light leakage...



Then attached the ends to the backs of the mood light panels.



While testing on the lights they fit perfectly but produced a nasty hotspot that I was able to get rid of by stuffing inside the straw tube a tiny bit of cotton from a Q-Tip cotton swab. I tested it again and viola... no more hotspots.




The two leds fit perfectly inside the straw and with the little bit of cotton the light was dispersed enough to create a very solid and diffused light. Works and looks perfect. If you noticed there's a little bit of my scultping putty on the back of the "eye". That's because I went ahead and made a very subtle detail that you never really notice unless you go looking for it and it's really hard to see unless you shine a light into it. I wanted to take advantage of the fact that these panels are made out of clear blue plastic. So I made what looks like a camera iris and stuck it in behind the "eye".



It's soo hard to see I actually had to use a flashlight held up close just to get this pic. It's not perfect and very very hard to see unless you're looking for it, but it's there. Just thought it would make a little bit of a hidden detail that no one else would think of doing. Anyway, that's all for now. This baby is coming together nicely. Most of the main problems have been figured out and the build should be going alot faster now. More to come!

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Its been a couple of days since my last update and I apologize. Been having a rough time with the body. Seems the unwarping I had done before didn't take as well as I thought and trying to get the two body halves to stay together has been one hell of a task. But finally, I think I got them to come together pretty good.



Still have the hair band holding them together until the glue fully cures just to be safe. But I was able to get the center leg assembly into the body and it fits perfectly with the electronics and getting the wires thru the side hole where the leg will be was a pain in the butt.



Once I got the body halves together I placed a piece of spare styrene in the hole at the bottom to give a good backing for putty and so I can sand it out into the proper shape when it's dried. You can see in the photo the seams between the body halves are gonna be a pain in the butt to fill and sand. Still got alot of work to do, but things are coming together.



There was something I noticed as I placed the left leg in place that I had to fix. There's a visable seam that I have to scribe into the upper arm that wasn't there and the actual plastic seam wasn't in the right position, so I scribed a new line and it looks pretty good. The other leg will have the same seam. I haven't got the bulked out joint between the body and the leg yet, because the body is still curing and I want it to cure completely before I fill and sand.



Finally I found a way to store the extra arm. Inside the back panel I created a small holder that the arm will slide and stay in so that it can be stored away without losing it. Works pretty well.



And finally... just because I know you guys are curious. I got all the lights into the dome. Still having a bit of difficulty getting the board to fit but I made a little video to show that they all actually work and show just how cool it looks. This is gonna be awesome when it's done!

All the lights are in!

More to come... lemme know what you think!

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LrdSatyr8 said:

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I showed this to a friend to showcase the attention to detail. His response was, "Girl robots have a robogina."

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I just fell outta my seat laughing! That's funny right there... I don't care whatcha say... Dear God please forgive me... and bless all those little naked pygmys down there in new Guinea! LMAO!

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I've been dealing with the body for the past couple of days and I finally got it solved. Major pain in the butt when you have to glue, clamp, let it completely cure, then glue again, clamp again, completely cure, etc... did that about 10 times until the body finally held together properly. But it's holding a good shape and I've doing little stuff while the glue sets. First off, I got the nut in for the foot. This is the anchor for the bolt to attach it to the base.



After the body had hardened enough I was finally able to get some work done on the bottom indentions and the shoulder joints. The bottom indentions are near the base under the side vent. These little indentions I cut out (and really wish I hadn't because it meant cutting off a main support for the body halves and turns out I didn't need to). I glued a couple of peices of sheet styrene behind the holes I had made and then using my Magic Sculpt (for those of you who haven't heard of this stuff... Milliput is about the same thing), I flattened out the indentions and let it cure. I also used the sculpting clat as a putty to fill in the body seams. You can tell the seams are pretty bad. That's just a peice of black tape to hold the front door shut while I worked.




When those where hard I began working on the shoulder joints. Where the body and legs meet. It was pointed out to me awhile back that the joints where too small on the model) and it has been eating at me ever since. I've looked at just about every kind of thing I could use for these things from old marker bodys to small diameter PVC pipes. Nothing I could find would work. It was either the wrong size, or the walls were too thin or too thick. So using my sculpting clay I began to shape the joints. Turns out, I was right and came up with a pretty good joint. Using the leg as a guide helped make the joints fit perfectly.



After the joints cured I wrapped the joint in bare metal foil and the final outcome looks fantastic!



Well that's all for now... more to come! Lemme know whatcha think!

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Ok... I've been pouring over the reference pics I have and have discovered a discrepency between the R2's (big surprise). Here are my reference pics.



Now this is the 3 legged version I've been using as my main reference. Note the small panel on the left side in the yellow highlighted area of Pic #1. Looks like it was damaged somehow in that photo. Also it appears as if there is a scribed silver panel between it and the mood light. One thing I didn't realize is that the mood light panel was outlined in silver (re: Pic #2). That'll be a pain. However... when I compared it to the 2 legged version... everything changes...



So looking at the 2 legged version we see that that scribed panel in Pic #1 is actually painted in Pic #3. Also, it appears as if the silver outlining of the mood light is painted blue as well (re: Pic #4) with the mood light section in a darker blue or even black! So now I'm puzzled. So, like any good artist, I had to go back to the movie. Since this was going to be the ESB version, I figured, I would scour the entire movie and see what they actually used.



So, now we can tell... Pic #5 is a snapshot of the deleted Wampa Pen scene... I really wish they would have kept that scene in there. It appears as if it's the same version as in Pic #1. And Pic #6 shows that the mood light is actually outlined in silver as suspected. So, now I know how to finish the dome detailing, and I can finally get this puppy done... but wait... New problem!



It appears as if I'm not gonna have enough room to make the panel there properly. I guess I'll just have to compromise. I'm sure I'll be able to come up with something. More to come!

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Been lurking this thread for a while now. Time to chime in a add an awesome to the collective. Those are really about 70% scratch built when you think about it! Great job.

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NakedMoleRat said:

Been lurking this thread for a while now. Time to chime in a add an awesome to the collective. Those are really about 70% scratch built when you think about it! Great job.

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Thanks guy... 70%... hmmm... maybe... I know alot of it I had to scratch, but I don't think 70%.... maybe 30%! truly appreciate the love bro!