Catalyst - My beetleweight Build

**daveimi** · 18th October 2016, 19:21

The floor is dusty metal.

**Jimmy** · 23rd October 2016, 09:03

Time for some panels on the outside I think. The scoop on the front is actually a cut down kitchen dough cutter, and the corners are recycled off the front of an old boiler.
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Also, I got a bit carried away, and made some fancy stickers for the sides. I'm finding this whole thing really quite fun

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I also tried the new drive out on the kitchen floor. I got myself tied in knots trying to set up the mixing on the DX6i. Ended up having it "2 stick style". Here it is having a little fight with some bathroom scales that were lying around. Think I'll be adding some little wheels or something at the front, because it seems to dig itself into the floor when it lifts something

https://www.youtube.com/watch?featur...&v=skFsgMuvapU

**R9000** · 23rd October 2016, 10:22

I might be able to help you out with the mixing. I had a little trouble with it at first too, but I figured it out on one stick

**Jimmy** · 23rd October 2016, 10:46

I think the problem is also related to the escs. I've got the elevon mixing on, and then gone in the "mix 1" and "mix 2" and set the ail-ele / ele-ail to 100% so full forward gives full power. However when turning, itseems to want to give more than 100% to either of the channels, which causes one of the escs to cut out. This only happens when turning full right (left motor is cutting out so it just stops). Turning left it behaves just how i want.

**Shakey** · 23rd October 2016, 10:51

Turn off elevon mixing. You want one mixing method or the other not both.

**Jimmy** · 23rd October 2016, 20:43

Ok thanks. Just tried again with elevon mixing off, but no success. I've tried playing about with the settings, but the best have managed to get is:
Mix 1
Elev - Aile
Rate L +100% R +100%

Mix 2
Aile - Elev
Rate D -100%. U -100%

Does that look right?

Again, the problem is when I start pushing the stick diagonally up/right and down/right. It works fine with small inputs, but then cuts out when I get to about 50% or so travel

**Jimmy** · 6th February 2017, 22:13

It's been quite a while since I updated this, so I thought it was about time I show you more of what I have been doing experimenting / evolving / attempting to generally improve Catalyst. I was thinking of doing an update after I'd actually been to some event with it, but lord knows when that may be, so I may as well go for it now.

One of the large problems that I had was getting it within the weight limit, and then having enough weight to put some meaningful armor on it. I had already gone down the road of drilling holes, which looked promising until I realised how much this had weakened the chassis. This prompted a bit of a redesign where I switched the lifter design from 4 bar, to a more standard setup, and shortened the whole thing by around 30mm:
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This shortening meant that the servo for the lifter had to go on the underside of the "lid", but after putting it all back together, and treating myself to a small sheet of Grade 5 titanium for the scoop, it looked like this:
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Adding the rear panel (also made from my old boiler) plus the lower weight at the front really helped the maneuverability, and it seemed much more nimble to drive. However having this design of lifter meant that it would not self right with a wedge shaped back, so I decided to move the battery to the front and make the rear flat HDPE, which significantly helped the weight situation:
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Also neatened up the front:
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Now with ample weight to spare I was actually able to add some top panels, and after an excellent suggestion on the wheels

, changed to some orange Banebots ones:
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Paint and stickers and it sort of feels like its done

.........for now anyway:
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