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Thread: Team Death - New Heavyweight

  1. #71
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    The Rage is certainly not happy about the situation. Using both the LiPo and the SLA battery, it didn't respond, even after removing everything else from the circuit. I'll see if I can find out who Charles is and where to find him, we got the ESC from Ranglebox, but might still be worth contacting Charles.

  2. #72
    Hi Adam

    Here's the link for Charles: http://e0designs.com/contact/

  3. #73
    Reliant Robin or Renault 5? ......my mind often wanders when building Robots
    but its fine as long as you can keep one eye on the task in hand and your thoughts
    are relative.
    When building a robot it's important for me to make it as easy as possible
    to work on when it's built so that's the aim with this latest creation and that's when
    recalled cars I worked on where easy maintainance was not considered in the design.
    One of my first cars was a 1972 renault 5 and the only way to do the clutch was
    to take the entire engine out.
    Secondly I recall my uncle asking me to take a look at his Reliant Robin 3 wheeler
    -the spark plug would shoot out of the cylinder head when he tried to start it,
    his son had told him it needed helicoiling, I remember taking a look through the
    letterbox size bonnet and thinking a keyhole surgeon is required here).


    I contacted Charles regarding the speed controller by e mail and he
    said it sounds like a classic reversed polarity spark.
    Needless to say Niall and myself are not happy with that explanation.

    Todays build diary.
    Unfortunatley Adam was unavailable this weekend and Niall was still in
    Scotland so I did a double shift on ny own.
    With the electrics on the back burner for now I turned my attention to
    fabrication.
    Although our Robot should easily drive with its scoop running along an arena
    floor I thought shock absorbing castors would make for a smoother drive so
    on Saturday I continued to make and fit said castors to the top of the body.
    On Sunday I needed to duplicate the process so it was a case of flipping
    the robot over and I thought while I'm doing that I would weigh it 87 kg-
    before todays add ons.
    The underbody of the Robot provides access to all the inner workings and
    needed covering, so that and the castors was todays task.
    I decided that some angle iron that we had used in other areas was best
    suited -Adam had complained about the noxious fumes it gives off when
    worked but needs mustoops:.
    I was going to make a rounded shape to match the existing body shape but
    found a angled shape worked just as well.
    Adam and myself had picked up some polycarbonate when we visited the bus
    dismantlers early in the year and I cut out a piece to fit the frame I made and
    bolted it on.
    I made the castors for the underbody but didn't have time to fasten to the frame.
    Heres todays pics
    DSCN1881.jpgDSCN1886 (3).jpgDSCN1890.jpgDSCN1891.jpgDSCN1898 (2).jpgDSCN1904.jpg

  4. #74
    Costings and build time
    After seeing last nights Robot Wars and some teams stating thier
    build times and costings-3,000 hours and 25,000 pounds.
    I thought I would try to do my own retrospective costings and
    build time in hours.
    speed controller £200
    wheels £40
    bearings £20
    winch £15
    car jack £35
    motors £250
    link £30
    rc gear £90
    batteries/chargers £120
    bolts + welding rods £60
    Sprockets large/small and chains £90
    elecrical sundries £30
    steel for fabrication £80
    use of electric for welding
    and cutting ect est £200


    Still to buy hydraulic trolley table est £200
    Total inc trolley £1460

    hours spent building 2x4 hours x 8 months +40 hours overtime
    320 hours.
    Or if you were charging for your time at say £20 an hour-£6400
    Last edited by team death; 7th November 2017 at 15:55.

  5. #75
    I think most of us are working on a budget and I like your figures. I guess if they counted in man hours of the whole team and had high bill rates you could get big numbers pretty quickly. I also see no issue in buying certain parts second hand or re-purposing items. Custom parts is where the money starts piling up would I guess, outsourced work is going to cost a bomb unless you know someone in the trade. Custom drop forged or single crystal weapons only for the millionaires out there.

    Thinking about it - I would be happier to lose to a £25k bot after putting up a good fight with a machine costing £500, than just managing to beat a £500 machine with a £25k machine. Like a track day warrior turning up in a super car beating a kit car, just hanging on their tale would give you a buzz.

  6. #76
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    For me, the most important thing in robotic combat is a trick I learnt in some games, especially EVE Online. Which is basically "Never carry or fly something more expensive than you can afford to replace". I personally would apply the same to this sport, and make sure we can always afford to replace whatever can die before going into a combat situation with the bot. You never know how many pieces it'll come out of the battle in, and how quickly you'll need to replace and repair before another battle, if despite the damage you still go through to the next rounds.

    In more light news, I'd completely forgot we still had the trolley to do.

  7. #77
    Access All Areas and Practice What You Preach......
    It's the weekend again and a double shift on the Robot done.
    This Saturday morning was dedicated to fabrication once again
    and my attention was drawn to the rear end of the Robot.
    There was quite a large space to be filled and I had discussed
    with Adam various options in the past but probably not the one
    I chose in a surge of inspiration.
    Practice What You Preach.....
    Earlier in the year I had tried to sell a mains powered 9"" angle grinder
    with a view to someone converting it into a dc powered weapon.
    No takers so by means of demonstration and to fill a space on the Robot
    I thought I would show how it can be done.
    The Grinder which is faulty by the way was stripped to it's component
    parts-armature/stator/geabox and casing and a suitable doner dc motor
    was found in the workshop.
    This was not a straight forward fit, the brass lugs that hold the brushes in
    place had to be cut off and the stator had to be sliced in two just before
    the gearbox and a universal joint was fitted between the dc motor and
    what remained of the stator, the dc motor stuck out of the original grinder
    casing too much so I found an old tyre off something I cant remember what
    that was a snug fit and screwed it in place using the casing holes and screws.

    Access all Areas......
    Sunday -Adam and Niall were due a noon so I thought I would have a bit of a
    tidy round, It's been a very cold day and I thought none of us will be wanting
    to stand outside so I will make a little space in the anex next to the workshop
    for Niall to do his soldering ect, I put in a little work bench and a lamp and made
    it cosy.
    Unfortunatley due to transport delays Adam and Niall couldn't make it today but
    the new electrical prep area came in handy for me to test the grinder.
    So the question was-will the grinder shake itself to bits due to badly aligned
    motor/stator joint-no-it was perfect-no vibration, just a gentle grinding noise
    from the grinder gearbox-probably needs some grease.
    I turned my thinking to how to mount it on the Robot and once again the
    advantages of keeping bits came up trumps.
    Adam and myself had gone halves to a trolley jack early in the build but
    had to discard the idea, now though the jacks body was perfect for brackets
    to hold the grinder in place and by next Saturday I hope to weld it in place
    and the fabrication will be 99% complete
    DSCN1911.jpgDSCN1912 (2).jpgDSCN1910.jpgDSCN1915.jpgDSCN1919.jpg
    Ginder in bits/ motor to stator connection/ prep for cutting stator / new electrical prep area /grinder in bracket

  8. #78
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    Yes, unfortunately myself and Niall got caught up waiting for buses that never turned up this morning. I don't mind too much, as unbeknownst to myself, York had arranged a large parade and events for Remembrance Sunday which is of course a very noble cause. So I'm not too irritated with the delays.
    I'm glad to hear the building went on without us, and I don't think these weekends with myself & Niall not being around is causing any major delays to the construction of the robot quite yet, thankfully.
    All been well, no expected hold ups for next sunday, and we'll be back at it with lots more progress and images for everyone.

  9. #79
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    Another Sunday has passed, and more progress to report.
    This weekend myself and Colin got together and worked on the bot.
    We started out trying to get some life out of the ESC, which according to a friend of Colins was in functioning order. However we failed to get that going once again, and this time around didn't make the mistake of spending a lot of time on it as last time we wasted around 1hr15 on it.
    So we moved on to the bot, and some more fabrication. The bot now has a polycarb base to it. The PC was cut in half, and double layered. Offering around 11-13mm minimum of protection, held together by some bolts. Colin got the big tools out after a while of me manually sawing through it, and we ended up breezing through the cut with a circular saw, and then giving it a go over with the buffer to get rid of the crusty edges and remove and defects that might cause it to weaken where it was cut.
    The original plan was to use some half cylinders (think small fire extinguishers) to cover it up, but after doing the cutting, we thought it didn't look as good as it could be, when we remembered we still had the polycarb left from the bus graveyard several month ago that is yet to be used.
    There is also the rear extra weapon Colin added last week, we'll probably turn this into a small flail to discourage people trying to sneak up behind the potential weakspot that is the rear. Also added by Colin since the last visit, is the back plate at the end of the tail. It'll hopefully help us be a little harder to flip, and right things quickly after they happen.
    There has also been some minor additions to the side of the front neck, adding extra protection from side swipes and buckling to those regions.

    The bot has also been weighed again, and we're up to the 100kg mark now, so not too much left to go.


    Images!
    1) No smoking in the Arena, even those e-cigarettes!
    2) The new home for the polycarb, on the base of the bot.
    3) The original plan for the base was to cut this roll up and use it, however we were unhappy with the untidy look it gave it.
    4) The overhead view of it all, note the circular part on the back, this is where a flail will likely go on the end product
    5) Current weight



    IMG_20171119_151431.jpg IMG_20171119_152309.jpg IMG_20171119_133200.jpg IMG_20171119_152428.jpg IMG_20171119_122327.jpg
    Last edited by Redirect Left; 20th November 2017 at 03:16.

  10. #80
    Another cold Sunday but Robots don't build themselves although when
    it's this cold I wish they would.
    Adam was visiting Sheffield this week so I set too on my own
    where we had left off last week.
    First job was to fabricate a pillar to support the polycarbonate sheet
    we cut to size last week-I found a suitable square box section with a
    handy T section on top and welded it in place, a small piece of angle iron was
    also welded to the snakemaster bar and the polycarbonate was bolted on top.
    A while back I had cut a hole either side of the wheel covers to give better
    access to the wheel bearing bolts so I added some hinges to the cut away piece
    and revited them into position-secured by a bolt.
    I had come aware of how close we were to the weight limit for heavyweights
    -last week we weighed the Robot and I thought there is between 5 or 8 kg to play
    with.
    I worked on the front section with this in mind, drilling large holes in the fabrication
    metal to keep the weight down-this has advantages for inserting a captive bolt or
    nut if needed.
    I welded on these box sections with thier captive bolts as added battery protection,
    there was some polycarbonate left over and this was just enough to cover either
    side at the front of the Bot like cladding and this was also bolted in place.
    DSCN1973.jpgDSCN1967.jpgRSCN1974.JPGDSCN1972.jpgRSCN1975.JPGDSCN1971.jpg

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