NZ BB-8 Builders?

[Bazzack]

A nice close up pic for ya'll.

image.jpg (278.12 KiB) Viewed 9689 times

[oota goota]

...Yeah I see the vac formed pieces as cladding attached to two half spheres a lot like the xrobots guy did I think. That way you don't get any join lines like if we were gluing together two detailed half shells.

What do you reckon MG and Bazzack? It might be the wrong tack to take

That sounds like the double-skin method used to get "panel lines" on most astromechs...should be as perfectly a good way to go on a full sphere as on a cylinder or R2 dome.

cool yeah well as you say that's the way they did it and it looks awesome so it makes sense to replicate

[oota goota]

Sounds ideal for the body cladding. Are you thinking the same for the dome? Or more towards a full one piece cast or vac formed dome?

well with the dome it's a smaller piece so it could conceivably be moulded and cast. Having a perfectly even weight wouldn't necessarily matter with the dome. One decent 3d print maybe, cleaned up and dropped into silicone? I've got a really good fibreglass guy down here he would do a really nice job. The dome would also set the tone of the droid in terms of panel depth, sharpness of details etc.

[oota goota]

A nice close up pic for ya'll.

image.jpg

thanks fulla that's a nice image. I think the little round might have to be cut out of the vac'd plastic but that's a great reference.

anyway I don't want to monopolise the build in anyway but I'm happy to pitch in if it helps.

What are other bb8 builders out there doing? All 3d printed?

[Jayjay]

I'm 3D printing the dome and using polycarbonate body with decals

[Bazzack]

anyway I don't want to monopolise the build in anyway but I'm happy to pitch in if it helps.

What are other bb8 builders out there doing? All 3d printed?

Really liking the vac formed cladding ideas OG. Would really like to see if that would work out. It should result in a really legit finish with the depth of the detail lines etc. and light weight too.

From what I've seen most people are 3D printing the entire dome, but there's s few people working on casting copies. I think that'll probably become a popular method, but I can definitely see it heading the way of the R2 dome, in the not too distant future, with a laser cut 2 piece styrene dome being produced. It makes so much sense. Light weight, highly detailed. And should be really cost effective once the initial setup is done.

Thinking as I type, It'd be interesting to look further into that locally.
The drawings must basically be done considering the 3D printing files that are available.
Not sure what type of file a multi axis laser cutter requires...

And for the body most are going Polycarbonate spheres with 3D printed cladding or decals at this stage.

[Jayjay]

Sounds doable! Would have to be a fully nested g code dxf or some sort of cad file that can be used on a 5 axis machine. So many machines now can use different types of files so I don't think that would be an issue. Might have a deeper look and see if the g code from stl files can be plotted together?

[oota goota]

anyway I don't want to monopolise the build in anyway but I'm happy to pitch in if it helps.

What are other bb8 builders out there doing? All 3d printed?

Really liking the vac formed cladding ideas OG. Would really like to see if that would work out. It should result in a really legit finish with the depth of the detail lines etc. and light weight too.

From what I've seen most people are 3D printing the entire dome, but there's s few people working on casting copies. I think that'll probably become a popular method, but I can definitely see it heading the way of the R2 dome, in the not too distant future, with a laser cut 2 piece styrene dome being produced. It makes so much sense. Light weight, highly detailed. And should be really cost effective once the initial setup is done.

Thinking as I type, It'd be interesting to look further into that locally.
The drawings must basically be done considering the 3D printing files that are available.
Not sure what type of file a multi axis laser cutter requires...

And for the body most are going Polycarbonate spheres with 3D printed cladding or decals at this stage.

that laser cut styrene dome does sound very good. Might be a better approach than vac forming. Oh well proof of concept is the way to go. Keep us posted what you find out bazzack!

[oota goota]

Sounds doable! Would have to be a fully nested g code dxf or some sort of cad file that can be used on a 5 axis machine. So many machines now can use different types of files so I don't think that would be an issue. Might have a deeper look and see if the g code from stl files can be plotted together?

I pretty much didn't understand any of that jayjay except the "5 axis machine" part but it does sound interesting!

[badges2nz]

I have just seen on the RPF forum that a static prop of this little fella is costing in the region of $800.USD for a kit.
Bit much for me in the initial stage, would be good to see how much it would cost here to do and compare.
My youngest wants a BB8 droid now.