Gonk droids, also known as power droids, were in several of the Star Wars films, though they never really stole any scenes.
They kinda waddled around, muttering “Gonk… Gonk” and some unintelligible words or phrases. In the movies they were used for powering machines, ships and other droids, which would be of use to me at cons as well. It always seems like I need an outlet at a show for my laptop or something and nothing is available (or more often, is usually taken by someone else).
There are several people building Gonks, and in fact there’s a Yahoo group devoted to it, but I never really took much interest. Neat yeah, but I have enough things on my plate as it is. Then Chris Bartlett of TK409.com posted pics and video of the Gonk he recently finished and now I have to make one! Chris’ Gonk is a very close replica to the one in the jawa sandcrawler, and is a wearable costume for his daughter (sounds familiar).
So add that to my list of projects. :) Sorry, but this is just tool cool not to try, especially since it’s not a terribly difficult build. I have some things in mind for useful stuff to jam into the body, and I’ll post about that as the build progresses. Onward and upward…
PF
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I promise I’ll be posting some detail part building soon. Things got away from me toward the end of last week and I didn’t get a chance to finish what I wanted to (as usual).
I did want to take a minute to point out a great idea that might go unnoticed on the R2BG boards. Bob Ross, a brilliant builder from Pennsylvania, posted a link for pictures of his ‘quick disconnect legs’ that he fabricated for his A&A build. Here’s a link to photos.
Bob’s design uses a part for the aluminum frame and mounts half inch aluminum ‘pegs’ through holes for indexing to a frame plate. There is an inner hub with fits inside the mount, which attaches a double-wall PVC pipe. This pipe inserts into a fitting made from plywood and locks in place with a bolt. The pegs absorb any torsional forces, and the inner fitting holds everything in place. Very slick!
I’m interested in using this for my low-cost droid in lieu of bolting legs on because, 1) it’s inexpensive to make, and 2) it will allow for quick assembly and disassembly of the droid, making it easy to transport in a smaller vehicle. The large diameter PVC will allow the heaviest gauge wire to be used and the whoe setup takes up little room inside. Awesome design!
Bob will soon be starting his own blog, and I’m looking forward to following his build. Builders can learn a lot from his experience and expertise.
PF
Ah, blogging again.
It’s been almost a year since I was on this blog. I had moved it to the astromechbuilder.com site, as you can read a couple posts back. I did this in the interest of keeping things more or less together on one site, after starting up the main astromechbuilder.com site, and offering blog space to other builders on it as well.
Well, in a nutshell the blogging feature sucked. Tough to upload images, hard to customize, quirky interface made others not want to use it. Made me not want to use it too. 
So I’m going to get this back up and running.
As usual, I have way too many irons in the fire, but things are improving. I’ve been working on scratchbuilding styrene parts for a low-cost droid, and will post up files and tutorials here soon. All that is needed to make many astromech parts is a file, sandpaper, styrene glue, and sheets of 1, 2 and 3mm styrene. I finished the ankle detail I was working on and have sent out PDF patterns to several people, so that will be following shortly — hopefully tonight. I’ve already posted the tutorial to the astromechfactory forums.
Later,
PF
Well, the time has come to move this blog to the AstromechBuilder site.
I’ve just about finished upgrades to the site, including additional galleries, and have found a decent, attractive and easy to use CMS to help string everything together. Along with this and the free gallery space I can host blogs on the main site. As a way to help generate traffic and contributions to links and the upcoming Wiki, I hope to host at least a few blogs there, so I’ll be moving right away.
I’ll keep this blog up for back reading. There are some posts that have importance for me anyway.
Thanks for looking in… You can reach the new blog here.
Thanks!
PF
I’ve been making steady progress on the A&A frame and legs, working toward a February goal.
I’m going to be attending Farpoint the weekend of February 17 and 18, and want to bring my upgraded droid with me. I’ll likely be bringing my static one as well, but I want to have the new RC droid ready with 2-3-2 working, or at least the first steps anyway. I want to have my A&A frame and legs glued and attached, and mounted to a base (probably just a 2×2 foot sheet of plywood).
I have my motors installed in the frame and a few layers of the legs attached to the shoulder hub pieces. The legs are connected to the motors through the JAG stops via M6 shoulder bolts from McMaster-Carr. I just picked up some M6 cap head screws for attaching a polycarbonate arm to the 2-3-2 shoulder motor and installed that this evening. I have drawer slides on order from Lee Valley Tools, and once I get them I’ll install the center ankle box and test out the mechanism. Hopefully it will be delivered by Tuesday.
With Andy Schwartz’s help, I’ve finished my leg rods, and will soon be cutting material from a few layers of the legs. I have been working on the connection of the rods to the legs, and have to have this finished before I make the final cut in case I need to enlarge the area the rods move in. I’ll also need to cut another channel for wires to run inside the legs to the feet.
I’ve also been plotting out areas where I can attach mounting blocks on the frame to attach tee nuts to use for screwing the skins to the frame. I’d like to be able to disassemble as much as possible, and this method will hopefully allow me to completely remove my skins.
More to come soon,
PF
OK, so it’s been a few weeks since I posted. Progress has been made, and updates are forthcoming. But first, let me tell you about this past Saturday.
I was talking with Andy Schwartz a month or so ago, who told me of the various projects he has been working on. Andy has lots of good ideas, and I’m all for copying, er, learning from other people’s good ideas. The Australia contingent of the R2 Builder’s Group has a WEEKLY get together where members build their droids. There’s NO way I could free up that kind of time, but I was able to get people together for a Builder’s Day on Saturday the 13th.
It was a great time. I picked up some good ideas from Andy and Blake Mann, and made some decisions on how I will proceed in my A&A frame and leg build based on Mike Marosy’s work. It was nice to meet Blake. He’s a really nice guy with some great plans for his gorgeous R2-X2. I’ll be watching his progress with great interest.
More than anything else, it was great to get together with a bunch of guys and talk droids and use power tools in my garage. (Insert Tim Allen grunt here) I’ll put together another one as soon as I can get it OKed by my wife.
Keep building!
PF
One day late, I know. I’ve missed a lot lately, including the one year anniversary of this blog almost two months ago. I started it November 8, 2005 to show my progress in my Star Wars prop building hobby, but unfortunately, toward the end of my build for the Halloween Artoo for my daughter Brenna, time got in the way in a big way and my updates became fewer and fewer as I worked later and later.
I’ve been working toward the next “phase” of my droid building, radio control! This will include a new frame, skins, and use many pieces and parts from Brenna’s Halloween “costume.” I will be better at updating the upcoming build, including dome power emulating Andy Schwartz’ plan, and low cost rear logics. I’ll be picking up my new Spektrum DX6 radio transmitter soon, and will be building a test platform for my drive setup. I’ve begun construction of my updated A&A frame, which I’ll be photographing and documenting in the next week or so.
Right now I’m in Fargo, North Dakota for the Holidays, which is kinda like the closest thing to being in the Outer Rim as possible in the United States. I’ve joked about it, and have been the butt of jokes about it, but I’ve always liked the city of Fargo.
There’s no snow, believe it or not. The first non-while Christmas since 1954. This has been a strange Christmas this year anyway. Last week it was 75 degrees at home, and I ust can’t get in the Christmas mood if I feel like getting a tan. To add to the situation, celebrating in Fargo (with my wife’s family) means that we exchange gifts with my brothers and mother weeks before. Everything just seems to be, well, off this year. Not that the vacation from work hasn’t been welcome.
I’ll be home next weekend and will be getting ready for the R2DC’s upcoming builders day at my home. Later!
PF
Recently I’ve had several new members join the AstromechBuilder.com galleries. This is great news, as the more images and files hosted, the more there is to look through and learn from, and the site helps fulfill it’s intention of sharing info and space with builders for free.
However, it also brings potential problems. Larger galleries have problems with database size and rendering and download times. I don’t want that. I want to make sure this remains a fast, extensible site that causes few to no problems for users and viewers alike. To that end, I’ve begun to plan for expanding the site to multiple galleries and multiple databases. To keep this from making everything disjoint and to help tie everything together I’m working on a whole new front end for the entire AstromechBuilder.com domain, with a complete, professional content management system.
I’ll likely be moving my blog there as well, so I’m looking into my options for doing that. The plan is to expand and streamline everything at the same time, while also planning for future growth of the site with possibly more galleries. Though the galleries may not be cross-linked (yet), everything will be within easy reach of the main site, with direct links to builder’s galleries and maybe even previews of content. I’d love to be able to showcase new uploads there as well, as it’s sometimes difficult to track who has recently uploaded what unless they jump up and down and point, “hey, here it is!” I’ll keep working on a way to do this.
Please don’t misunderstand, there are no problems with the current gallery, and no one has reported any problems with access. I’m just trying to think ahead and stop any problems before they arise. I’m also planning on extending the domain registration for the foreseeable future. The site won’t be going anywhere for a while.
Other possible plans for the new incarnation of AstromechBuilder.com include free sub domain hosting for builders, and free blogspace for making your own building diaries. I’m testing out software for this as well.
So there are some cool changes and updates ahead for the site. I’d like to offer space to some non-droid making prop builders as well. From my experience all info helps at some point, and photos of a custom lightsaber may show just the right part you need for that home made lifeform scanner…
Thanks, and stay tuned.
Happy Thanksgiving!
PF
OK, I’m getting stoked for going RC! I just received my Scorpion XL motor controller to add to my Picobotics PicoESC controller I’ll use for the dome rotation.
I’ve been dryfitting the frame and legs and checking out motor locations to get a better idea of what I’ll have to do when I start final assembly. Basically I’ve been poking everything a bit here and there while I throw out bag after bag of stuff getting my basement workshop set up. I really need the room to build, so this has to be done before I go much further. I want to have a local builder’s day in about a month or so, so I need to get things together.
Next thing I’ll have to get is my RC transmitter/receiver combo. One I have this I’ll mock up a test rig for my foot drive. I was laying this out the night before last and seeing what I’ll need to build it. I’m following the design of Texas R2 Builder Dan Stuettgen, who also uses the pancake motors I have. this droid is going to be light weight enough that I should be able to use these low-draw motors, giving me good speed and better battery life than the 100W scooter motors.
I was doing some test fitting in a set of feet that I had built in wood with just a few pieces of masonite to approximate the size of the motor carrier, and I think I may have to use smaller scooter wheels. Dan used Razor push scooter wheels for his drivetrain, which are smaller than the ones I bought off Allen Jackson for cheap about a year ago. I may have to see if I can find a good price on some.
Not a lot to see here right now, but it’s coming. I’ll be on track soon. I have a few new and interesting things on the horizon as well. The Holidays are coming, and it’s tough to get a lot done during that time. I’ll do my best. Talk again soon —
PF
