R2D2 Budget Mod by Frenk Janse

Throw away cuts and planning

The first task was to find an old ATX case, which was quickly disassembled to leave the motherboard tray and back panel. It was a bit too big, so this meant it was time to crack out the large pneumatic dremel and make it smaller!


The can needed cutting down too, so ear protection in addition to the usual goggles were needed since the circular metal amplifies the sound like a drum.


From the many pictures of the net, I estimated the length to width ratio and decided to cut off a big chunk. Now the motherboard tray fits nicely.


Then I used a smaller dremel with a sanding bit to take off the sharp edges around where was just cut.


I came across Astromech and the guys from the R2 builders' club, and they kindly provided me with the original blueprints of the real R2. I found out my R2 was actually 75 percent of the real deal! Also the blueprints were in inches so I needed to recalculate everything in millimetres and scale down by a quarter.


This is the bottom "skirt" made from MDF. Firstly two pieces were nailed together, then a jigsaw and rope was used to cut an accurate circle. However, I forgot the 75 percent size rule and made it 26cm, not 21cm that it should be. After this the large disc was hollowed out to make room for two mini cathodes.