Bandai big 1/2 BB-8 build

EDIT: Here's an updated diagram of what I *think* will work and what I suspect worked before thanks to that loose connection.

View attachment 729943



Haha! It's too technical for me. See the post above :D

i recommend to put the emitter of the transistor to the - of the 5v in (usb).
The speaker has no fixed + and -, the membran must be moving forward and backward around the zero point of the speaker.
For the best working solution to light a led with the sound you need a low or high pass filter to driver the transistor.
An other point: 1k for the led is a bit to high, 470-680ohm are good for best light by 5V input power.
 
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i recommend to put the emitter of the transistor to the - of the 5v in (usb).
The speaker has no fixed + and -, the membran must be moving forward and backward around the zero point of the speaker.
For the best working solution to light a led with the sound you need a low or high pass filter to driver the transistor.
An other point: 1k for the led is a bit to high, 470-680ohm are good for best light by 5V input power.

Cheers! The mouth LED's dim on purpose. I would ground the emitter to the 5v negative, but that appears to be shorting the amp.

I made some headway over the weekend. Lots of spray painting so not much interesting to photograph.

Gap filling above the eye, too. There's quite a big seam and some flex in that part of the head, so I not only needed to glue everything but reinforce the joint with a small piece of styrene.

I tried creating a base with the hexagonal box I had, but I didn't like it so I turned my attention back to the kit base. I've cut out the Star Wars logo and I'll create a panel for the light and sound switches and the DC jack plug, which will sit at the back. I intend to pose BB-8 at an angle, which allows me to run wires out of a hole in curved trough that the peg sits in. The plastic cracked while I made the hole... horrible brittle stuff to work with. When it's done, I'll paint it black.

IMG_0120.JPG

And of course, having everything painted and cured means I can test fit everything. The darker orange gives him so much more presence and looks more like he does onscreen with the colour grading. The only paint needed now is the dark grey for the eye and the projector. I used Plastistruct rod for the tall aerial. Made more sense that trying to sand the nubs of the aerial on the sprue. Almost a shame to weather him, isn't it?
 
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That looks unreal ! Very nice clean details and the finish is beautiful.....nice job. It is almost a shame to weather it.

I was thinking about your base issue. Another option could be making a large square or rectangular platform instead. Something that has just room to hide the wires and secure the BB8 at the angle you require. The surface of the platform could be the desert sand. You could even have a "path" behind him where he rolled up. Just a thought...
 
Fourth time lucky with the MP3 board and the LED! My last circuit worked grounding the LED via the amp. I still need to test the current draw but looks pretty good. I took the 2.2k resistor back down to 1k while troubleshooting some issues so hopefully that isn't drawing too much. However, the transistor runs cool so hopefully it's not too wasteful. I need to stay under 2A with my current PSU.

Tengel07 is correct, a high or low pass filter would make the mouth effect better but it works OK as it is except at the highest squeals. If you watch the movie, the mouth doesn't always flash with sounds, but then they would have been dubbed after I presume.

I now have all 8 modules wired and installed (6 body panels, head lights and mouth/sound). Plugged it all together last night, switched it on and to my surprise it all worked first time. :D

New pics and perhaps a video soon. Base making tonight!
 
So, here's the base! I cut out the Star Wars logo then cut holes for the controls on piece of styrene then glued it on with poly cement. I actually hadn't looked after the base that well as I originally planned to replace it, so there are some dents and scratches in it... You can't see them with the two coats of matt black. One switch is for the lights and one for the sound circuit. Since I took these, I wired two leads with male DC plugs on the end that thread up through that hole and into BB-8's body. Remember, all the modules are wired with female DC plugs and the light circuits are all connected via a splitter cable. So, one of the leads from the base goes straight to the sound circuit while the other one connects to the splitter cable.
IMG_0129.JPG

And here he is, all lit up on the base. I wired most of the LEDs so they were on about half brightness.

One the switches were in, I had a natural break with which to test the current draw using my multimeter. The 12 LEDs only use about 170-180mA (it varies as the animated lights flicker). The sound circuit of course draws a different amount depending on the volume, but with the volume set at a sociable level, it stays very low, around about the 60mA range. The lights would be slightly dimmer, but I could run this off a 9v battery. The salvaged DC socket I used is the type where you have a third lug for running it off a battery, so I could wire one in the base. The buck converter for the MP3 board takes anything from 6v - 24v.
 
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The weathering begins. I've gone for paint effects as a dab on/dabb off technique seems to get pretty close to the weathering on the screen prop. I'll do a little blending with pastels later.
 
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All weathered. *Might* be finished. I certainly don't want to take the body apart again as there are a couple of loose connections on a couple of the lights. They work with the strain taken off the cables, and I don't want to take the disk sections apart unless I really need to. The kit needs a little force to put it together so it's easy to put a stress on things.
 
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I've been creeping along with my build in odd moments... I followed your lead and picked up a can of Painter's Touch Real Orange which is a good colour indeed, however after noticing some crazing in the plastic after the first coat (over acrylic primer) I realised this is not an acrylic spray. Given the well documented effects of some lacquers on Bandai's plastic I would have to *not* recommend this paint.

After 24h I wet-sanded with 1200 grit and applied another light coat which seems to have settled down ok, but I was a bit worried as there was still a perceptible tackiness to the first layer after that 24h. Will leave well alone for a few days now and see how it goes.
 
I've been creeping along with my build in odd moments... I followed your lead and picked up a can of Painter's Touch Real Orange which is a good colour indeed, however after noticing some crazing in the plastic after the first coat (over acrylic primer) I realised this is not an acrylic spray. Given the well documented effects of some lacquers on Bandai's plastic I would have to *not* recommend this paint.

After 24h I wet-sanded with 1200 grit and applied another light coat which seems to have settled down ok, but I was a bit worried as there was still a perceptible tackiness to the first layer after that 24h. Will leave well alone for a few days now and see how it goes.

Oh no! :(

Mine went on fine, marvellously in fact — even the test direct to the spare sprue without primer. I went on quite thick to get a bit of a gloss, too. But I did spray it on a very warm day and used the ever-trusty Tamiya light grey rather generously so perhaps that helped. I had the opposite experience to you. Mine was touch dry in an hour or so and you could handle it properly the same day. I even went on to use some of the silver on some other parts :eek: Close shave!

Hope your kit is okay. They do say you can use it on primed plastic... I wish companies labelled paint better as plastic is a rather wide definition! But then they probably use the "test an area" caveat.

I'll edit my original post with a warning.
 
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Second orange coat seems to have smoothed out and hardened off - phew! This was over Hycote acrylic primer (cheaper alternate to Halfords). The Hycote white gloss produced a beautiful finish on the white bits. Too beautiful in fact - I'm going to have to dull that down a bit!
 
Second orange coat seems to have smoothed out and hardened off - phew! This was over Hycote acrylic primer (cheaper alternate to Halfords). The Hycote white gloss produced a beautiful finish on the white bits. Too beautiful in fact - I'm going to have to dull that down a bit!

Great news! Do post some pics. I need to do some proper pics of mine but not had chance yet. This weekend!!!

By the way, this has almost convinced me to collect the DeAgostini 1/2 R2 to give him a friend.
 
I should have started taking pictures earlier - althought there's not much to see at the moment. The white bits are white, and the orange bits are orange.

I have started planning out a lighting system though...
 
I *still* haven't got round to photographing BB-8 properly. I was just going through the memory card on my camera and found some lighting tests. I've never tried to photograph a model with LEDs in before!
IMG_3112_small.jpg
 
Wow, looks great. I've managed to build mine without posting any WIP. However I'm still working on the animated lights module, which I hope to finish soon.
 
Automaton,

Great build! I just got my 1/2 scale BB-8 assembled and was looking for posts on adding lights to the body!

You have some great ideas.

Yes the body panels are very snug - do you think it would help to mask off the inside edges of the body panels and triangles as you are painting, so it would be easier to remove them for maintenance?

Here is my assembled kit - no paint.

IMontys Bandai BB8 half scale is finished MG_5671.JPG
 
Automaton,

Great build! I just got my 1/2 scale BB-8 assembled and was looking for posts on adding lights to the body!

You have some great ideas.

Yes the body panels are very snug - do you think it would help to mask off the inside edges of the body panels and triangles as you are painting, so it would be easier to remove them for maintenance?

Here is my assembled kit - no paint.

View attachment 746041

Thanks. Yours looks great! Masking off the mating surfaces would help, I'm sure, especially on all the pegs. I don't think it makes a big difference on the triangles, if you mean the plain white panels between the discs.
 
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