droid ventilation!

Hey guys and girls!
I thought it was time to have a first proper post in here. So here we go then:

I found nice 1mm thick aluminium sheets at the local DIY store the other day (that DIY store is right next door, which comes in VERY handy!) and thought a good way to start upgrading R2 would be to build him some new aluminium vents!

I have never worked with aluminium before, so my first attempts at cutting it were a bit trial and error, lots of errors actually! But hey, "do, or do not", right?

However, I eventually found a way that worked pretty good for me:

First I printed out drawings of the side and pocket vents in the right dimensions and glued them on the aluminium sheet using spray glue.


I used drawings that were just recently posted on the builders club mailing board, if you want them I uploaded both of them in a zip here. Just print those PDFs at 100% and you'll have properly sized templates.

Then I took out the ruler and my cutting knife to score the outer lines. I repeated those cuts about 2 times with lots of pressure to make sure I cut as deep as possible. Then I could easily break the aluminium along the scored lines and it just needed a little filing to clean up the edges!

I repeated that 4 times and ended up with this:


As you can see I took off the paper drawing of one of the pocket vents already there. Before I did that I once again scored the lines I need with my cutting knife, only that I did it very slightly this time, just to know where the recesses will need to be.

Next I drilled as many holes as I could fit in the recess parts and after that I started filing. What followed was filing, followed by filing, followed by even more filing, oh and eventually a bit of sanding to clean the edges!



Took me half the day to finish the first pocket vent front, but then I only used hand files, no electricity involved here!

However, I'm quite pleased with the result, even it needs a little more cleaning up here and there.


What's next? Well, there are three more vents to do, so I guess I'll have to strain my files (and my arm!) a bit more. Uttini!

Labels: part building

posted by Daniel @ 20:50 Comments: 3