Date: March 13, 2007
Total hours spent today: 5

Beware the Ides of March! Sure, I'm two days early, but truer words have never been spoken! Today was the day that droid builders around the world fear and dread! The day of the melt down! The day of the burn out! The day when you see that mythical puff of white smoke coming out of your droids torso!!!!

I don't know if I was being careless, not paying attention, or just being a dork, but I burned out my electronics today. It was spectacular! (Quick look ahead: everything is fine). Here's the scenario. Point one is that I just laid down a bunch of foam matting on my garage floor to protect R2 from the harsh realities of concrete. I was scratching the heck out of the paint job on the feet every time I took the legs off, and I wanted to put an end to that. Point two is that today I was tinkering around with the drive system. Just wanted to get it all debugged, and make sure everything is working properly under typical conditions before painting and sealing it all up. In some of my testing, I came to the conclusion that maybe the weight was causing problems. So I wanted to try it with lighter weights. This meant smaller batteries, which I just happened to have on hand. I put in the new batteries, and got R2 all wired up for action. This all took place while he was standing on the foam mats. I fired up the power, and applied some torque to the motors to get him moving. He stayed put. I applied more throttle. He stayed put. I applied MORE throttle, and that's when the horror show begain.

It started with a tiny popping sound, or maybe a quick hissing noise. Then the smoke started coming out. At first, it was just a bit, and I was thinking "oh no! Here's that Puff of Smoke you hear so much about!!!" But then the smoke started GUSHING out of his torso. THICK, white smoke. Then I noticed the sizzling noise. I could see the wires inside catching fire and burning. They were lighting up like christmas trees! I was horrified! This all took place over the span of about three seconds, mind you.

I quickly hit the power switch, but the smoke kept coming, and the wires kept burning. I don't know if it was just residual current, but it looked to me like there was still power running through the wires. So I popped open the back door (NOT A EUPHEMISM, by the way!!!) and yanked all the cables out of the batteries.

The burning stopped, and I started laughing! I thought it was pretty funny. For all I knew, I just trashed every component in R2. I decided to take a break, and step away from him for a bit. I didn't want to try to work on the thing while I was all hyped up from the melt down.

I went upstairs and called the lovely Lori/Carol, and told her about the slag heap that was now in my garage. She was sad! She was really looking forward to seeing R2 walk around in person, and was heartbroken to hear that I had destroyed him. Or at least, she did a good job of PRETENDING that she was heartbroken! What a trooper! Such a good girl!!! But in the middle of the conversation, it occurred to me that maybe there was some hidden burning ember still inside R2, and my whole garage could currently be on fire. So I got off the phone and went down to check it out. Everything was fine, and this seemed like a good opportunity to investigate.

First thing I noticed was that ALL of the cheesy Radio Shack alligator clip wiring that I use to temp wire a system for testing was totally slagged. The plastic shielding was all melted, and the wire was black. The garage smelled pretty fierce too. Here's a snap:

That was a bummer. I spent a few minutes re-wiring the whole system with some OTHER cheapo Radio Shack alligator clips, as I was curious to see if any of the systems had been fried. So far, it looked very promising, as the only wires that were damaged were those cheapies.

Good news is that within minutes, R2 was up and walking again. Pretty cool. So the weakest link, the wiring, was the thing that suffered. Not exactly the circuit breaker I had in mind, but it worked, I suppose. Interesting lesson though. I would not have guessed that walking off some foam matting would cause such a stir. I REALLY need to get those circuit breakers installed!!!

Here's a picture of R2 all repaired after the fire.

But much of the day was really spent just field testing him. Walking around the appartment complex and seeing how he reacted to certain conditions. A couple of things I learned. The left leg drive doesn't seem to work as well as the right. R2 behaves strangely when making in place 180's and 360's. It's obvious that the left drive isn't putting out as much force as the right. Don't know what to make of that. I've got a few things to test, but who knows. Second thing is that R2 vibrates himself apart!!! The screws on the ankles kept loosening up. Got to figure something out for that. Same thing on the center foot mounting plate. Had a big scare when two of the four bolts popped out mid stride. So there's still some work to do on the bugs in the drive system. I'm glad that I did not rush ahead into painting.

Somewhere along the line, I removed two of the panels that I glued into place on the dome. They were not sitting flush with the outer dome, so I pulled them off. Tonight I re-glued one of them into place. The second one is up tomorrow.

And most significant of all, I got the main holo-eye into place. Now he's got some real character to him. It's amazing how this one little piece can make all the difference in the world on this lil' feller.

So that's it for today. A pretty wild day. Lots learned, and a bit accomplished.