Dome Painting Started

I finally started painting the dome. I'm using Red Pepper(2328) Krylon Fusion spray paint (for plastic). I'm not doing the white panels yet. I would like to fit the panel pieces and possibly do a little more sanding on them after seeing them against the red dome before painting them white. When I do, I will be using Krylon Fusion Satin White(2420). I was able to get two coats on before I got complaints about the smell and had to stop for the evening.

Logic Surround Bolts

I didn't have much going on today, so I finished sanding the dome. I washed the dome and set it aside to dry. Hopefully tomorrow I will be able to do some painting. Since I have my J.E.D.I. system running I figured I better get my front and rear logic surrounds finished.

I started off by centering the plastic J.E.D.I. Display cover for the front logic surround.

I used some linesman pliers to snap the heads off the #6-32 x 1½" bolts so they glued inside the logic surrounds.

I then drilled 1/4" depth holes big enough to accommodate the headless bolts.

I then added some nuts and used one of the logic plates to make sure the bolts stayed straight up and down while they were being glued. One by one, I dripped Tech Bond glue into each hole, sprayed the bolts with an accelerator, and then dropped the bolts in the holes. The accelerator cover bolt hardened within a couple seconds (which allow for quick repositioning and adjusting using the J.E.D.I. plate).

Once the front logic displays were done I followed the same procedure for the rear logic displays. I knew this was going to be the case, but the top and bottom line of LEDs are both half covered (by design) by the surround.

Still Sanding

Dome sanding pictures are pretty boring, so I didn't take any more. I sanded the DAP Plastic Wood and I'm getting close to and smooth even dome. After the latest round of sanding there were still some places that needed to be filled and touched up. Hopefully, tomorrow or Friday I will be able to do the last of the sanding and start painting.

No Work, But Influencing Young Minds

I didn't do any work this weekend, but I was influencing young minds. I was showing my J.E.D.I. Control system to my nephew Christian and Joshua this weekend. They are still too young to start doing any real building, but they love to hear what I'm doing with my R2. Every time I show kids my R2 progress it gets them interested in science and building. Kids usually spend the next hour or so playing with some of my remote control toys and asking several science, electronics, or building questions.

J.E.D.I. Controller Problem Solved

As you may have read in a previous post, I was having issues with the J.E.D.I. Controller sending signals to Display Controller. I posted on Astromech.net that I was having an issue. Scott Gray, the creator of the J.E.D.I. Control and Display systems, knew exactly what my problem was.

I previously hooked up the items from the Display Controller and Logic Displays by themselves. When hooked up alone power needs to be run to the Display Controller through the PDCRX pins 2 and 3 (pin 1 is ignored in this case) from the DC/DC Converter. The J.E.D.I. Controller sends signals/power from the PDCTX pins to the Display Controller PDCRX pins (in this case all three pins are use because pin 1 receives the signal). I connected the J.E.D.I. Controller PDCTX pins to the Display Controller PDCTX pins which caused the signals to clash and prevented the Display Controller from functioning properly. I couldn't get past the fact that power did not need to be supplied from the DC/DC Converter when the J.E.D.I. Controller was hooked up.

Everything works great now! The morals of this story: 1) The builders, and Scott Gray, are great and will do almost anything (at all hours of the night) to help a fellow builder and 2) Don't hookup electronics when you are tired.