January 2020

T3-N3-R0 Padawan360 Adaption

Sticking on T3 for the moment, I have also begun work adapting Dan Kraus' Padawan360 System for our T3 droids. The issue currently (not really an issue) is that they only work for R2 and to be honest we could make them work for T3, but I am aiming for a hot swappable chopping board of most electronics to save builders having to buy multiple parts per droid. Currently, I am using the same electronics that I am using for R2. I have managed to program extra triggers within the system since originally all I could find were around 26 sound files from the game, and they weren't very good sound files.

T3-N3-R0 Lights V2

This month has been most working on T3 which technically I did begin in December but this month has really taken off. I've been working on V2 of the lights since I didn't like V1 at all. A big thank you to Craig who did a fantastic job with the BT-1 Lights which also uses NeoPixels. You can watch his video in the MB 3D Printed Droids Group. The lights needed a bit of tweaking but I'm rather happy with them! The colors are a bit of a pain to get right but it's almost there.

Drive System

Happy New Year! What does 2020 have in store for me I wonder? Well I'm determined to get R2 rolling. Even if he isn't complete I want him to move, I do have a slight issue though. I need to work out a way to have him moving and secure whilst moving but also to still allow his legs to come off, so I can get him back in my room because he will not get through the door with his legs on. I'll be getting the chain drive sorted since I am now onboard with the idea of going with a chain drive system.

Photo Courtesy of Darren P

T3 Head Adaption

I managed to find a .sh file that runs as a BASH command and basically it converted the hexadecimal file which was the .wav file into a playable mp3 file. Thanks to this I have been able to get hold of nearly 100 T3 files but what good is that if the R2 units are only programmed to play around 50? So we now have some more triggers than can play these files which is fantastic and the R2 Builders can even use these to add more R2 sounds if they wanted to. The next step is to adapt the dome part of the code because T3 moves his head in 3 directions, R2's spinning direction, he can go forward and backwards in a nodding motion but also tilt his head left and right so that is the next stage!