RogueTwo Robots

[RogueTwoRobots]

Post-champs review

A bit late but here goes.

Had a reasonable championship this time round, placing 5th with Drumroll and Carcinus bagging 9 points and still running despite taking a pounding. Thought it was all over for Drumroll after its first fight with NST & Ricochet when the chassis bulkhead got pretty bent out of shape, but thanks to the fly press at the Coopers' place, I was able to get it all back and running for the second day of qualifiers and onwards through the event. Here's a breakdown:

Drumroll v Ricochet v NST
A bit of a cagey start, staying out of the way while NST and Ricochet jostled away. But partly due to bad driving, I ended up drum-to-disc with NST on two occasions, the second resulting in the above mentioned damage. NST ended up in the pit followed by Drumroll, with Ricochet taking the win.

Drumroll v Conker 3 v Massacre
Didn't have a drum for this fight so expected to get creamed early on, and was annoyed I wouldn't have a chance to be involved in the 'big bang'. But Conker 3 and Massacre delivered on that front and took themselves out in the process, leaving Roll free to take the KO!

Drumroll v Hatchet v Bonx
Had the drum running again for this fight. Again a tentative start, trying to work out how best to deal with Bonx, but he was getting the better of me in general. He then lined me up to charge me (and Hatchet) into the pit but overclocked it and ended up in the pit himself, while Drumroll bounced over. I then went over to take on Hatchet and smacked it across the arena and upside down, and since his axe wasn't working properly, he couldn't self-right.

Drumroll v Satanix 1.666 v Killer Bee
Got an early hit on Killer Bee, sending it out of the arena. Then had a good old tussle with Satanix that was going reasonably well until Drumroll got stacked against the arena wall and couldn't get off.

So that left Drumroll with 12 points from the qualifiers which was plenty to get through to the knock-out stages. I won't go through them all in detail but here's the summary:

Round 2: Against Satanix again, lost again (lost drive on one wheel and seized drum).
Losers' melee: Came through against Explosion and Gianto when the former got stuck during self-righting.
Round 3: Against Rango, beat it but sustained some damage.
Round 4: Against LH3, lost that when I got stuck on the ends of my bulkheads and the drum wouldn't knock it down.
Losers' melee 2: Won that against 720, Galactus, TS3 and Satanix. Combination of luck and good driving/tactics.
Round 5: Against Rango again, lost out this time. Can't exactly remember how but I had no drum and took a few hits. I have a feeling it got stuck against the wall again (Ellis?)
Losers' melee 3: In the arena with LH3 and Defector, sent out of the arena (and the comp) by Defector.

Can't remember the outcome of Carcinus's fights (as usual) except that its claws got damaged by NST so we switched to the old claws as static ones, and they got pinged off by TS3. Competed in several whiteboards against spinners (even winning one or two) and took a fair amount of abuse but it's still running, though it will need a new top and bottom panel.

Onyx had three whiteboards over the weekend. Lost drive to the axe in the first, got flipped out by Diablo in the second and KO'd by Combustion in the third. Aside from that, the axe was in great form, firing rapidly all over the place. I just need to work on the robot's reliability and my axe co-ordination skills.

Repairs-wise, Drumroll needs a new drum. The current one is in a helluva state with bent teeth and cracked welds, so more motivation to get a new one made. Also need to remake the bulkhead that NST fubar'd, and possibly the other one too. The Banebots drives on the whole were a vast improvement, although I did lose a brush in one of the motors and then subsequently burnt another out at the Scot-Bots event at the weekend so I've only got one working unit. Need to get replacements ordered from 'murica although I am closely watching some brushless testing done by Aaron in Oz with a possible view to going down that route with motors that have the same PCD and shaft size as the 775s. Also over-discharged one of the nice Optipower lipos so will need to order a new one of those, though that can wait until the next major champs.

Carcinus needs a new top and bottom as mentioned, though I'm tempted to rebuild it with the claws as a completely separate module made from steel so I can get a bit more force out of the system. Might go back to a threaded rod, maybe driven by brushless (or maybe not, depending). Was considering having this champs as its last but there's life in it yet and it looks good so will stick with it for now.

Onyx really needs a complete rebuild to get it in weight and generally just make it better but the current chassis will stay for now. Just need to reweld the sprocket on the scooter motor, make a new axe arm and replace a drill motor and it will be good to boogie again.

And a couple of pics to go with the mass of text. One of the 17mm steel drum shafts (which got changed about five times over the weekend) after the losers' melee drum-off:



And the axe once it had been Combustion'd:



So all in all an enjoyable event but with plenty of work to do afterwards (which, let's be honest, is part of the fun).

tldr: ROBOTS.

[Flag Captured]

You know, I honestly that was it for Drumroll after that first fight with NST - to have it running again the next day was just outstanding! Just goes to show how good the drive system was in it, as well as how well it was driven, I'm sure it won at least 2 fights without the drum! A new drum and brushless drive especially would be rather cool as far as upgrades go - brushless drive is something I'm working on with HardWired, hoping it pays off because it's pretty good on paper. Much less weight for the same power output supposedly, definitely an advantage assuming the ESCs that claim to have instant reverse actually do have instant reverse!

[RogueTwoRobots]

Update

Just thought I'd post a quick update following on from Robots Live in Edinburgh last weekend. Despite fighting against the clock, I managed to get Onyx ​repaired from the UK Champs and did a bit of work to get MoBot running again as Carcinus is still in a sorry state. Haven't really had time to give Drumroll a proper post-champs assessment so when pilfering the TZ-85s out of it for Onyx, I noticed just how out of shape everything is:





For the record, those teeth are 15mm chunks of Hardox 500. Along with the cracked endcap welds and generally goosed state of the tube, a new drum is a must. So is a new chassis by the looks of things.

Onyx had a new axe made up, which just involved lopping the duff length of box section off the existing arm and welding a new piece on, then adding a new axe head out of 4mm Hardox 450 (or 400, not sure). Stays sharper for longer but gets stuck in wooden floor panels more easily.

So prior to any fights last weekend it was looking pretty good:



But I pretty much spent the whole day doing this:



which is replacing the drive motor as I smoked one each and every fight (with exception of the third fight where I wasn't in the arena long enough to burn anything out). I was even running on reduced rates from the start as Onyx has previous when it comes to smoking drill motors.

There's obviously some underlying issue as I run the exact same setup in Carcinus and those motors have lasted for months (well, until I put them into Onyx last weekend). So that, coupled with the cracked baseplate, holey chassis, stripped bolt holes and general obesity, means that Onyx is up for a complete rebuild as well. Going to try and make it more compact so that I can armour it better and make it suitable for full combat, which will be tricky as it's already pretty tight for space inside, despite being a large(ish) robot.

So in conclusion, all three robots are in need of complete, or as near as, rebuilds in order to get them into respectable states. Except MoBot, which needed no maintenance all weekend and is still in a perfect working state.

And in terms of events, that's us done for the year I reckon. My training's almost finished so will be focusing on my job for a while and trying to save a bit of money, plus just need a bit of a break from the robots, so won't be much happening on here. But they'll all be back in due course to kick robutt.

[calumco]

jamie, banebots are still going as far as im aware so let me no if u want a pair of those motor support kits

[Mouldy]

lol that picture of drumrolls insides look familiar... looks like your battery moved forwards into the plate, which in turn bent into your motors causing issues... same as 720...

Didn't your teachers at school say "don't copy the person next to you- because if they get it wrong, you will as well" :P

[RogueTwoRobots]

That may well have been the cause Dave, though the left-hand bulkhead does bow out around the motor along its entire length and the right-hand one was fubar'd anyway so I don't know if it was entirely the battery, but not great either way. The ali divider was only cheese grade anyway, would've been stronger with Cardox.

And you're right, I should know by now that if I copy something that's crap, then mine will be equally as crap

[Mouldy]

Thems fightin words... looking forward to bending your next drum and re smashing your brushless in 2015 now lol

[Gabe01]

The young always have the same problem - how to rebel and conform at the same time. They have now solved this by defying their parents and copying one another. - Quentin Crisp. I blame Jaime's parents.

[playzooki]

im different to my parents but i dont copy other youths :P

[Mouldy]

Just noticed in your previous post jamie you mentioned you over discharged your opti pack... was this under normal circumstances? Or did you not have chance to fully charge it before you went into the match? Just out of curiosity really as im considering getting the same packs.