R2-D2 PC

R2-D2 PC

Skip ahead to:

Page 2

Page 3

Page 4

Page 5

Here's pictures of an R2-D2 Pepsi cooler I found on the net. I saw one just like this at a local gas station waiting to be tossed in the trash. The cooler itself was unrepairable as it had a huge gash from top to bottom . I knew I could easily reproduce the look with a large drum and put a computer inside. The legs wound be the hardest part to recreate and fortunately the legs from the cooler were still perfectly preserved. I asked the attendant if I could remove the legs and he couldn't care less. Lucky me.

R2-D2 will be replacing Air Force One. To do this I will be using the parts from AF1 for R2. They are:

Abit IC7-G
P4 3.2GHz

(OC'd to 4.7GHz!)
2GB OCZ DDR400 (4x512MB)
256MB Radeon X1950GT
120GB EIDE
7.1 Surround Sound
1 Floppy drive
1 slot loading CD drive
2 external DVD drives

Phase Change Cooling @ -38C

I bought a 45 gallon drum and painted it white.

And about 20 packs of black Pinstriping

Then I began the pin striping.

I wasted at least 100 feet trying to do this to just right

I just used tape and spray paint to get all the squares filled in.

At some points I had to re-paint the white where I messed the blue.

As you see I've gone to extensive lengths to get it just right.

Here's a pic with the legs I got from the old R2-D2 Pepsi Cooler

R2-D2 is gonna be as big as my 5 year old daughter!

The head for R2 is going to be from a Weber BBQ grill.

I had look for a long time to find something that was 22 inches in diameter.

There are some holes in the grill from where the vents were.

I will back it with sheet metal and fill them with bondo.

The lip on the grill made it's diameter measurement 22 1/4 inches. So I'll have to cut it off in order to get a clean, snug fit.

I started cutting with a jigsaw and only scratched the surface before the blade broke.

I switched to my dremel with reinforced disks and used about 8 of them to cut off only 40% of the grill's lip.

I'm not worried, because I now have an Angle Grinder and the rest will go quick.

Next up, I used expanding foam and steel rods to add support to the legs.

Here's what it looks like after I shaved it nice and flat.

Since I did not want to leave the feet looking that way, I shaped out coverings for them.

I used rivets to hold them down.

And I painted it white to match the body.

Then I had to cover the holes in the grill. I used sheet metal and some JB Weld.

And a little bit of bondo to fill in the holes.

Then I began on the primer.

For the bottom, I installed some intake and exhaust fans.

I cut out a circle of sheet metal.

I may use the lower space in the future for storage or something.

This part was painstaking, but obviously necessary.

And since it didn't match it had to be painted.

There you go, significantly better.

The pinstriping around the IO ports had to be fixed. It was important to me that it appear to be there naturally and not interrupt the original pattern.

Here's the dome after the silver and clear coats have been applied. Next I'll have to tape it up in preparation for all the blue parts

My Vapochill system has arrived. I'll be putting this in the bottom of R2. I should hopefully be able to achieve temps of -30 Celcius.

I set R2 upside down just to show that it will fit inside.

I mounted the mother board tray inside and have cut a hole in the heat shield. The hole will be for the Vapochill unit to attach to the Processor. I will probably have to make it bigger.

Here's the eye frame and lens. I bought this from builders of Astromechs (R2's, R4's, etc). I wanted this piece to be authentic, maninly because I don't think anything I could make would look good.

Here's the eye framing after it's been painted. It's the exact same blue I'm using for the whole project.

Here's a pic of the painted eye on the dome. It really helps get the idea of where I'm headed and how well I'm doing.

The dome had to be painted next.

I used masking tape to cover the portion to be painted then drew out my design.

Then using a razor blade, I carefully cut away the panels making sure that I didn't cut away the silver paint.

Here's what it looked like after I cut them all off and was ready to paint.

Next, I used blue paint. It's the same paint used for the blue body parts. It's all about CONFORMITY.

When I peeled off all the tape this is how it looked. There are some spots that are not perfect edges, but I plan to correct it with the pin striping still left over.

Next Page

HOME

INDEX

GALLERY