Ion Systems - Build progress log

**typhoon_driver** · 17th October 2016, 16:30

The taulman 910 needs to be kept incredibly dry both during storage and during printing. I'm not just talking about throwing a few silica packets in a bag and sealing it for a while. I use a heated vacuum chamber which causes all the water to evaporate at around 60 deg C. Then during printing i keep it in a dry atmosphere until it hits the hot end. If you don't then it will cause weakness and won't print well. Even then there are a few other tricks with it but i can't be giving away all my secrets

**TechAUmNu** · 17th October 2016, 16:53

Your humidity must be really high then. I just keep it in a sealed bag with 2kg of silica. Then the spool sits in the same bag while printing with the filament coming out of a little gap. Works great. Last time I had to dry out some nylon 6, I made the mistake of putting the whole spool in the oven... and it melted lol.

**TechAUmNu** · 19th October 2016, 20:43

Our application is in, fingers crossed that we get picked!

**TechAUmNu** · 26th October 2016, 21:56

We have now started ordering all the parts and putting them together! This is our latest set of renderings for those who like those things. The robot has been on a diet to allow us to get another set of batteries in.

Ring_assembly_2016-Oct-23_12-23-38AM-000_CustomizedView26398045626.jpg Ring_assembly_2016-Oct-25_10-06-08PM-000_CustomizedView41495915817.jpg

**R9000** · 26th October 2016, 23:21

Certainly is a beautiful rendering - you really seem to know what you're doing with that. Can't wait to see this thing for real.

**TechAUmNu** · 16th November 2016, 09:18

Here is our latest progress on Triforce.

On the CAD side:

The pillars which support the skateboard wheels are now a single piece to make them stronger.
The top and bottom plates have a nice weight saving pattern applied to them.
4 support pillars have been added to strengthen the center of the robot.
The attachment of the armor rings to the aluminium top and bottom plates has been redesigned to make them easier to attach. They are now welded to steel tabs that bolt on either side of the aluminium.
Added hardox covers to protect the sprockets on the wheels.
Changed batteries from Turnigy Nanotech to Optipower 30C. Now with slightly lower capacity but less chance of fire, lower weight and smaller.

Build progress:

Drive motors now running with VESCs. Thanks to Rory for his help.
Started work on software to provide controls conversion for inverted driving and automatic orientation to make driving easier (Turns to face the same way all the time).

Some nice pictures:

Initial layout for weight saving structure
2016-11-15.png

Final weight saving design, saves about 6.6Kg in total:
Robot_Wars_Series_2.jpg

Robot_Wars_Series_2_Assembly_2016-Aug-14_09-19-28PM-000_CustomizedView27102788934.jpg

New skateboard wheel support pillars. They also provide most of the structure of the robot.
gallery.0 (1).jpg gallery.0 (2).jpg gallery.0.jpg

1000Kg Horizontal force.
1000Kg horizontal force.png

1000Kg vertical force.
1000Kg vertical force.png

**bitternboy** · 16th November 2016, 10:31

Thas vewy nice, I'd personally be a bit worries about those FOS for the vertical load, are you expecting the equiv of 1000kg force? Also, out of interest, are you doing this as a uni project with the uni's resources or just on the side?

**TechAUmNu** · 16th November 2016, 10:48

Originally Posted by bitternboy

Thas vewy nice, I'd personally be a bit worries about those FOS for the vertical load, are you expecting the equiv of 1000kg force? Also, out of interest, are you doing this as a uni project with the uni's resources or just on the side?

Yeah, the idea with those pillars is that the bolts or skateboard wheels will fail before the pillar. Which means we might lose one or two support wheels but the chassis will remain intact and we just replace the broken parts.

Its on the side, but being sponsored by the university. So we get access to their resources. We actually have everything we need to do it ourselves anyway but we cannot afford the ludicrous price tag >Â£7K.