fixing a bad motivator

Had to share this beauty

R2-D2 has some fancy lights in his head, but here with the 40% scale they resulted to holographic stickers instead. I might change that with some fibre optics (lichtleiter for ebay) or replace it with an OLED - not sure yet! both displays come together to 225 LEDs.

LED system: 

http://2geekswebdesign.com/astromech/lighting-up-the-dome-part-1-building-the-teeces-3-2-logic-display-and-psi-system/

R2-D2 seems to run on 3 voltages:

• 6V for the motors
• 4.5V for the logic
• 1.5V for clock or memory keeping

From other projects I've learned about drone parts, known as BECs that convert LiPo voltages to 5V and most often 12V. I want to modify the HTPDB-XT60 module so it will convert to 5V and 6V instead, so I can use a 2-cell LiPo pack.

To control the motors I will use a DRV8838 single motor driver for the dome and a DRV8833 dual driver for the leg wheels

This thing is packed with interesting stuff!

Dome

• PIR sensor
• 2 microphones, 1 left and 1 right (for body reaction only?)
• LED for the beamer
• two LEDs in the front
• ultra-sonic range finder
• PIEZO in the top (tap to wake up)

Body

• Speaker
• another microphone
• dome motor
• 3 IR photo sensors for dome position check
• leg motors
• switch acting as "brake" / bolt