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Thread: Team Health & Safety - First Time Builder

  1. #51
    I finally got round to fiddling around with the lifter system.

    You see, there was a bit of an issue. As is the case with every roboteer stalking the badlands these days I like my insides to be thoroughly protected. You know, just in case there's some evil robot pulling a rabbit out of a hat and you're left with a smoldering heap of what once was delicate, costly electronic circuitry.

    IMG_20170628_174447.jpg

    First, there was the matter of harnessing the power of the servo. I fabricated a bracket out of HDPE, and moved right along.

    IMG_20170629_122046.jpg

    I chose the first emulate the two-bar system that the Viper lifter uses, and this is how far I got. Now, the big piece at the top is merely taking the role of surrogate here as opposed to being an actual representative model (as it is, it has no lip to get underneath other bots - the actual lifter would have a bend at the end), and there were a number of issues.

    To start off: fully extended it didn't really seem to have much reach. I mean, it had enough for my control-type of lifting, but for something like selfrighting this certainly left to be desired.


    IMG_20170629_123350.jpg

    It certainly looked cool though, especially when folded down.

    IMG_20170629_150726.jpg

    However, the biggest issue was with the lifter mechanism itself. When all is said and done I like my stuff beefy and simple and whereas the lifter itself was quite chunky...

    IMG_20170629_150734.jpg

    ...it's only as strong as its weakest link. I mean, if your lifter is held on with the tiniest screw imaginable then you shouldn't expect favorable results in the jungle that is robotic combat.

    IMG_20170629_155416.jpg

    I therefore reckoned it best to flip the servo, put on a bigger arm and operate the lifter by letting the servo push the arm upwards with rubber bands pulling the lifter down, instead of connecting the arm directly to the servo. This is simpler approach, which not only makes the servo less prone to feel the hits, but also enables me to make the 'lifter slot' in the top armor less than half the size, meaning more protection for the juicy innards!

    As far as the juicy innards are concerned, you can probably tell it's going to be a bit of a squeeze, but I reckon I can get everything to fit just fine.

    The coming week will see titanium enter the construction phase, and hopefully I'll be able to do some first driving soon as well.

    Plenty of fun to come then!
    Last edited by Zenith; 2nd July 2017 at 20:49.

  2. #52
    NO BRAKES ON THIS TRAIN!

    What a day.

    Today I paid a visit to the lovely home and workshop of Mario and Babeth in Belgium, for the first time in 15 (!) years. I reckoned my need to make some sparks fly was as good an excuse as any to revisit the place where the foundation was laid for my robotics bug all those years ago.

    IMG_20170708_143135.jpg

    First, Mario showed me the ropes, and then we set to work as a team. I did the grinding, and Mario drilled the holes.

    IMG_20170708_172531.jpg

    I must say that doing all of this, time flew by at an alarmingly fast rate...

    IMG_20170708_172708.jpg

    ...but the result was great. We tried bending the top lips of the small wedgelets upwards as well, but found that the titanium just sheared off. One of the sides also sheared as we bent it, but Mario welded that up in a jiffy.

    Anyways, the result looked better than I'd have hoped.

    IMG_20170708_173240.jpg

    Especially the big wedge. After seeing the titanium shear with the small wedgelets, we chose to leave the top lips on the big wedge as they were.

    IMG_20170708_222950.jpg

    Coupled with the lifter this will give you an idea of what the end result will look like. All titanium will be painted, but I'm waiting with that until all electronics are in place. I'm doing that deliberately because I tend to be quite... aesthetically inclined, so I want to save that as a reward for when the bot is actually finished.

    I weighed the entire thing with all the nuts and bolts required, and without the electronics it weights around 950g. It seems to me that I will have some wiggle room for extras once everything is in place.

    Speaking of which, now that I FINALLY have a base plate I can put the rest of it where it belongs, and start doing the insides.

    More on that in the coming week. Whooo!
    Last edited by Zenith; 9th July 2017 at 08:10.

  3. #53
    Looking good Greg. Can't wait to see it in action

  4. #54
    Quote Originally Posted by Jimmy View Post
    Looking good Greg. Can't wait to see it in action
    Thanks, me too! I mean, we have to do something against all them spinners this September, right?

    Any big changes to Catalyst?
    Last edited by Zenith; 9th July 2017 at 20:24.

  5. #55
    Dear god how are you still following this thread?

    Like an elephant charging towards nosy Americans that are getting too close, I seem to have hit my stride. Must be that the summer holidays have started - lots of spare time, yay!

    With all of this free room to maneuver there's plenty of time....

    IMG_20170710_161631.jpg

    ...to make an absolute mess of the dining room table. Now, we're not going to have dinner. I'm not finished.

    IMG_20170710_162300.jpg

    First thing on the agenda was testing the servo - I basically took the ready-made circuitry (including old battery) I used in the test chassis and hooked it up to the servo to see what was what. I could then also get a feel for how this new chassis handled.

    So naturally, time for a lap through the living room:



    That seemed fine! Now, it was time to get busy with the actual circuitry to be used. Right on cue I took delivery of my XT30 plugs, so right away there was more soldering to be done!

    IMG_20170711_130514.jpg

    I credit Rory from the Nuts team with putting the fuse atop the link like this - I adore how the two parts seem to be made for each other and everything. Whoever said romance was dead?

    IMG_20170711_150910.jpg

    Then, time to fit it all inside, and see how the wiring would go. The two holes in the center of the baseplate are not a poor excuse for weight saving or anything - they're for the servo mounts.

    IMG_20170712_132532.jpg

    Anyways, more soldering! Most of the circuitry is done here, save for the connection between the negative leads.

    IMG_20170712_222248.jpg

    After some more cocking about (I first wired one of the ESCs to the LED pictured above, so one motor was lagging behind) this was the eventual result. XT60 plug for the battery, XT30 for the link with a 30A minifuse, then the ESCs and parallel there's the Power LED. Everything should fit, but it's going to be rather snug in places.

    Upon completing all the wiring (and fixing my LED screw up) I took it out for another drive, new battery and all. The first drive will all of the actual insides in place.



    Seemed quite nippy, although the real heavy stuff (like uh... the titanium wedge and top plate) is still missing from the chassis. The prognosis is that I'll be quite underweight though, so my devious brain is already concocting evil right on par with Black Adder's weasel fetish.

    Question for you though: I'm a bit puzzled as to how to solidly connect the ESC wires to the motors. Up until now I just hooked them in since that's more than enough for a test drive, but I've read that soldering the lugs of the motor is risky (the heat can screw up the insides). I reckon that I could just hook the wires in, squeeze the wires to 'fold' them after which I shrink wrap the lead so it can't go anywhere. Does that sound sensible or am I distilling a Baldrick-esque vibe upon this thread?

    Leave your message after the beep.
    Last edited by Zenith; 12th July 2017 at 21:51.

  6. #56
    Al_'s Avatar
    Member

    I have used the 4mm bullet connectors to attach the drive motors to the ESCs on Pressure Point. They were liberally wrapped in heat shrink and had a bit of strain relief on either side of the cables (cable ties!). Despite been thrown around, and out of, the arena they have never given me any trouble.

    https://hobbyking.com/en_us/4mm-gold...airs-20pc.html

  7. #57
    Quote Originally Posted by Al_ View Post
    I have used the 4mm bullet connectors to attach the drive motors to the ESCs on Pressure Point. They were liberally wrapped in heat shrink and had a bit of strain relief on either side of the cables (cable ties!).
    I imagine these connect two wires together? I'm at the point where the motor does not have any wires at all, but only the lugs visible at the back of this motor (these are in fact the very same motors I'm using).

    Soldering these lugs seems risky to me, so it seems more sensible to hook the wires through, fold them backwards and then shrinkwrapping the folded wire around the lug.

    Let me know what you think.

  8. #58
    Soldering wires to those motors is fine as long as you use appropriately sized wire - NOT soldering them and just wrapping bare wires around the lugs will be far less reliable.

  9. #59
    Soldering is better.

  10. #60
    Solder the wires on and put heat shrink over to stop them bending too much. They will come off if you don't solder them and the resistance will be higher (probably doesn't matter much for these tiny motors though).

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