IV: Useful Links

These are useful links related to my highly detailed review of “Build your own R2-D2,” a “partworks” kit designed and sold by De Agostini/Modelspace.

What about a full-sized R2?

Until recently no company ever produced a working (ie: non-static; not an actual artificially intelligent droid!) full-sized R2-D2. The costs are really high, and thus the market for such a product would be prohibitively tiny. For a while the closest thing was the full-sized and not terribly accurate static sculpture by Sideshow Collectibles at $7500 US. In 2019 the Disneyland "Galaxy's Edge" theme park announced a seemingly fairly accurate full-sized droid for eye-watering $25,000 US. There's a reason the De Agostini R2 is so small!

So where do those full-sized motorized R2 units that you see at fan conventions and shopping centres and children's hospitals come from? Well, those have almost all been handmade by fans! Lucasfilm has wisely allowed a subculture of dedicated hobbyists to build their own droids for their own entertainment; merely preventing people from selling finished robots openly.

In years gone by it was really difficult to make a movie-accurate droid. Not only were the necessary mechanical parts expensive and hard to find, but real information on the film props was actually very limited. Today, however, there's a whole online community of hobbyists trading information on how to make that perfect droid. Miniature computers are cheap and accessible. There are people selling limited runs of difficult to make parts. And there are extensive specifications and blueprints online.

The place to go for this is Astromech.net, the R2-D2 Builders Club. Registration is required to get to the plans. There are two basic sets of specifications - the original Club Spec Legacy (CS:L) material and the updated and generally more accurate Club Spec Revisited (CS:R) material. Neither is completely screen-accurate, and all the hobbyist-made plans are reverse-engineered from the original robots, but they're nonetheless very useful.

Even if you're building a little De Ago R2, this stuff is extremely handy if you're considering customizing your build.

Links.

De Agostini/Modelspace pages:

De Agostini Modelspace UK:

https://www.model-space.com/gb/build-the-r2-d2.html

De Agostini Modelspace USA:

https://www.model-space.com/us/build-r2-d2.html

Modelspace online instructions:

http://forum.model-space.co.uk/default.aspx?g=topics&f=446

Official feature list:

http://forum.model-space.co.uk/default.aspx?g=posts&t=22145

Official De Agostini assembly videos:

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLAUMlkDf1XphYZW9OUKndCE_wekwtnEGN

Official De Agostini setup instructions (user guide):

User guide

De Agostini troubleshooting page:

https://forum.model-space.co.uk/default.aspx?g=posts&t=30247

De Agostini battery activation procedure:

https://forum.model-space.co.uk/default.aspx?g=posts&t=28414

Non De Ago pages:

Because the ModelSpace website frequently craps out, resulting in tons of broken image icons, I've slapped PDF files of the instructions I was able to download here:

https://sites.google.com/site/deagor2instructions/

Battery safety. An article on the subject of lithium cells, from a UK company which supplies them to vapers, R2-D2 builders, etc.

https://18650.uk/r2d2-battery-safety/

“DeAgostini / ModelSpace Build R2-D2, Build Diaries” Facebook group:

https://www.facebook.com/groups/BuildR2D2BuildDiaries/

“Build Your Own R2-D2 by deagostini” (sic) Facebook group:

https://www.facebook.com/groups/157334124954317/

Trustpilot rating for De Agostini UK:

https://uk.trustpilot.com/review/www.deagostini.co.uk

Trustpilot rating for ModelSpace UK:

https://uk.trustpilot.com/review/www.model-space.com/gb

A hobbyist-compiled list of bolts and screws used in the De Ago R2 kit.