Mini Meet 04.14.06

Florida R2 Builders "Mini Meet"
My Work Place
Winter Park, Florida
04/14/06

We had another meeting of local builders. It was a bigger turnout than we had first thought! A good time was had by all sharing idea's, parts and of course disussing R2! We had 10 builders and friends show up. Thanks to all that hauled parts over, it was awesome to see the different approaches builders are using to construct their droids.

o Bob Hitchborn
o Brett Landon
o Chuck Moore
o Doug Dixon
o John Castiello and friend Gabe
o Keith and Carolyn
o Steve Lamb
o And yours trully..

Some meeting highlights:

Doug brought the now "infamous" blaster/RC radio setup, sweet!
Steve brought one of those linear actuators for 232 that he had bought from ???. We tested it using a power supply I had laying around. Worked great! One thing though, Chuck decided to try to "feel the force" with his finger and the actuator drew some red stuff from his finger! Ahem, more sacrifices for science!
Meeting Brett and kudo's for bringing his awesome fiberglass skins and skirt. Sorry dude we couldn't keep you down in Florida, your heading back to a better place anyway, we will miss having you around.
Running my R2 with R/C control for the first time. It was only the dome spinning, but it's a start!
Brett doing a rescue 'catch' on my R&J dome. I had set the dome back on the rockler bearing and didn't fully seat it on the mounting studs. I went to spin the dome again and it just about flew off, Brett caught it before it hit the table or floor.... THANKS BRETT!!! I don't want the dome to look THAT weathered!
Meeting all the great people in the area that are building our little buddy.

Members attended (top left to right then to bottom)
:
Brett Landon, Bob Hitchborn;
Steve Lamb, John's friend Gabe, John Castiello;
George 'Chip' Luck, Chuck Moore,
Sitting, Carolyn and Keith Bellavia with baby R2.
Missing: Doug Dixon came in later...
Mini Meet Group Photo

Brett Landon and his fiberglass skins. Nice! Where
is the skirt? Guess some Jawa already made off
with it ;-)
Brett's Parts

Keith is holding Brett's fiberglass skirt. Looks great.
Bretts Skirt

My plan was to spin my dome for the first time at the
meeting. Success!!! First R/C control of R2. Used
a Futaba 9CAP, Mark's PCB1/PCB2, two Big Lots
12V batt's and Guy's dome drive motor kit.
Woooo Hoooo!!! (nice picture Keith!)
Oh, there are two faces there... I'm not _that_ fat ;-)
Spinning Chips Dome

Carolyn giving the dome a spin. Had to pass the R/C
around ;-)
Carolyn Spinning Chips Dome

Brett and Doug doing some secret planning...
Brett and Doug Planning

John (no... the other John) Castiello and some of his
handmade parts. First time some of us has seen a
A&A frame. Nice work.
John Castiello

Steve Lamb and the now finger eating actuator.
Looks like this thing is going to work great! He
also brought his A&A frame kit. Thanks for sharing
Steve!
Steve Lamb and Actuator

Chuck Moore starting the sanding of his R&J dome.
Chuck got some real work done during the meet!
Chuck sanding dome

Doug's blaster radio. Wonder if he's going to make
kits for these?
Dougs Blaster Radio

Doug's A&A R5 dome frame flatpack.
Not yet glued, he has very little time to
get this baby together for Star Wars weekends.
Good luck Doug and thanks for bringing it.
Dougs R5 Dome Frame

A picture of Doug's booster cover mounting method. A
couple of pieces of sheet metal and a couple of screws.
Looks like a good idea...
Dougs booster cover

That's about it, still may get some more pictures from Keith and Carolyn. Thanks all for coming out! See you next meeting!

First Created: Saturday, April 14th, 2006
Last updated: Monday, April 17th, 2006
Time: 2155 EST