So, it’s been a while since I’ve had the screwdrivers and soldering iron out for fun, so figured I’d start a new project and share it with you guys. What I’m working on this time is a toy hack rather than a scratch build, and for this I’ll be using the R2-D2 Interactive Astromech Droid from Hasbro.
For those of you who don’t know, this was released in 2002 and was fully voice controlled (no smart phone or R/C controllers). I purchased this off eBay a couple of years back and after finding out that the voice recognition wasn’t that great (not for me anyway), I was going to do an EZ-Robot conversion similar to what DJ and a few others did... but, as some of you know, I ended up scratch building a full size droid instead so it got packed away and forgot about it.
Recently my girlfriends granddaughter has shown an interest in robotics so I have started helping her out and introducing her to EZ-Robot. While searching for robot bits and peices, I can across the little droid and have set about giving him a new lease of life and make him better than he ever was using a EZ-B v4/2 dev kit and a few sensors etc.
Here goes. Enjoy. 
Other robots from Synthiam community
Bmcnamee1's Extending Jd
Rb550f's Ez Robot Attacknid 6Lr
Looking SUPER !
Have fun!
Ron
you are one fast robot builder.wow
Thanks Patrick. There’s not really a lot to it. The hard part was already done, ie, the body was already made, lol. Truth is that I had a couple of days free so used them to do the R2 mod.
Cheers Ron. I have to say it really has been fun. I missed doing this kinda stuff. Bit rusty on ARC though, but it’s coming back to me. And thanks again for posting the video. It was good seeing your R2 in action.
Small update.
Not much to say this time round as I’ve been working on ARC for most of the day. There are a couple things I wanted to mention though.
Speaker.
I have used the original speaker that is fitted inside of R2’s chest area. For any newbies reading this, what I did was to remove the EZ-B casing and tiny speaker, soldered a couple of wires to the SPKR terminals (pictured below), reassembled the EZ-B casing and connected the wires to R2’s speaker wire...
The SPKR terminals are amplified through the EZ-B so you can hook up a non amplified/non powered speaker to these. The amplifier on the EZ-Bv4, and also on the IoTiny, is made for an 8 ohm load, and a speaker rated for 0.3W. For wiring up an amplified/powered speaker, different terminals must be used and full details can be found using the following link...
https://synthiam.com/Community/Questions/5681
I have a small modification to make on R2. This model has two opening flaps, one containing a beverage holder, and the other is meant to hold the interactive voice command card and telescopic arm for the dome sensor. It turns out that this compartment is the prefect size for the LiPo battery’s I am using, so tomorrow I’m going to drill a hole through the compartment wall, feed the power harness through and connect the battery. I’ll take and post a couple of photos when it’s done.
So I’m about half way through doing what I need to on ARC (or there abouts) and started to make a mobile app. Nothing special in the looks department, just went for a simple looking but user friendly UI...
Once R2 is fully up and running, I’ll post a demo video.
Still cracking on with ARC, setting up R2’s controls etc. But after watching @Andy Roid’s video of his lil droid having a boogie, it inspired me to post a short video of mine having a dance.
What do you reckon Ron, an Astromech Droid Dance Off, lol
...
haha the screaming sound is great.
Haha I love it! That’s some serious progress, dude. You’ve only been at it for a couple of days and he’s already rock’n!
@nomad
I know, right. That scream always makes me laugh.
@DJ Hehe, glad you like it. Yeah once I got started on this project... I just couldn’t put the tools down.