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Thread: RogueTwo Robots

  1. #811
    Scotbonyxinus?

  2. #812
    I knew it would be a crusher!

  3. #813
    Update

    Drumroll's rebuild isn't quite underway yet so nothing much to report pre-champs yet, but I've got itchy keyboard fingers and realised I hadn't posted anything about Reaver's build and how it did at Robots Live MCM. So time for a bit of a retrospective.

    So, I'd tentatively planned to join Tony in going to the RL Comic Con event at the NEC, but with Drumroll, Carcinus and Onyx all in a poor condition, the only robot I had to compete with was MoBot, which I thought would be a bit boring. So I started looking at what I could do with MoBot to make it more interesting, with the main point being, could I fit a weapon in it?

    Initial plans were to fit it with a lifting mechanism, the lifting mechanism I built a couple of years previously for the MDF bot but which never got going and had been sitting on a shelf doing nothing. To get the module to fit, I needed to move all of MoBot's components, which were located in the middle of the robot, to either side to make way for the lifter. The module itself was a perfect fit once the components were rearranged, so things started progressing in that direction.

    To make it a decent lifter, I opted to fit a couple more drill motors and make the robot 4WD. This was needed to stop the robot rocking when accelerating, allowing the lifting blade to stay flat to the floor and straight. It was also the first time I used the mill for cutting out the drill mount holes, and safe to say it made a difference!



    Rather than making a front scoop for the lifter from scratch, I noticed that Onyx's front wedge was the perfect width and size to fit onto MoBot's chassis, so it was temporarily pilfered. But, and to cut a long story short, the wedge made the robot look a bit like a mini Tornado so I thought about just running as a rambot, and then I just happened to pick up one of Carcinus's claws which were lying nearby and positioned it as a vertical grabber, and it just was meant to be.

    I removed the threaded rod from the lifting module and fitted a GLA-S actuator instead, for speed and ease of build. A couple of drill holes later and the claws had a pivot point. This was the rough shape in the early stages, pretty close to the final version:



    Next step was to get the claw and actuator properly mounted and join the claws into a single point, a little Razer-esque. A bit of cutting and grinding was required as well as some more crude hammering to get things to line up, but by the end, it all joined up quite nicely:





    Also needed a small wedge on the front so that when the claw came down, it would clamp the opponent in place rather than just pushing my robot up. The welding on this was utter rubbish and there was so much heat it distorted the wedge slightly. I was able to sort it out with the grinder, but any chance of reusing it on Onyx is now out of the question :P

    The small wedge later was trimmed down to allow a larger bite gap. The green LEDs in this picture were part of the old MoBot theme, but by now the name was being changed to Reaver and red LEDs would be fitted. But I just thought it looked incredibly cool in this photo



    With the red LEDs fitted. Gives a bit of a look at the components inside. The actuator was controlled by a spare Victor 883 I had lying around, and the drives were controlled with modified TZ-85s. The battery was the same as in Onyx, so 18.5V and 2.2Ah.



    All finished and ready to go to Birmingham. The small wedge has been cut by this point for the aforementioned bite gap increase, but I think it kinda kills the style a bit. Think I'll redo it to make it curvy. The name Reaver comes from the Firefly TV series and had a few decals on it to fit in with the theme.



    So, to the event. Reaver took part in all the featherweight battles over the weekend. Positives were that the drive was very nippy and I didn't burn out a motor all event. Less positives were that the claw got jammed in the fully open position in a couple of battles as I hadn't got round to fitting limit switches, but it was easy enough to fix. The claw wasn't particularly good at crushing, it was clearly channeling its inner Carcinus and only really worked as a grabber (although Calum's ali flight box might contest that :P)

    By the end of the event, the chassis was starting to come apart as the brass inserts, which have been in there for a few years and have seen a lot of arena time, were beginning to wear out of the plastic. The top panels came off in a couple of fights after hits from Little Hitter and Killer-Joule as a result and the actuator got chopped by LH too:



    More surprisingly, even though the floor was just MDF, the tyres are shredded. Don't know if it was just doing lots of driving with it, but it was power-sliding across the arena at times so not sure if that's just worn them out. The wheels were used on Drumroll at last year's champs but were still in good condition prior to the MCM as the earlier photos show, but it was just pulling off easily in my hands:



    So one wheel is now completely bald and I'm going to take the tread off the others and fit bike tyre to them as the wheel bodies and hubs are all still fine.

    In terms of progress or upgrades for Reaver, it's on the reserve list for the world champs and will be doing a few whiteboards at least, so it'll need to be beefed up a little. I've bought a bag of barrel nuts that I'll be using to replace all the brass inserts, so that will mean I can keep the same chassis (which is generally in a good condition) but not have parts fall off it anymore. The linear actuator will be getting mended and given a bit of protection, limit switches will be fitted and I'll make up some side armour in the event that it ends up meeting a spinner or two. Weight was quite close prior to MCM so may have to shed a few g's. The front scoop is a bit overkill so I might remake that from braced 3mm steel instead, which would help facilitate additional side armour. It also doesn't run upside down at the moment; I might look into roll hoops for when facing flippers but that's not high on the priority list quite yet.

  4. #814
    Barrel nuts! That's a good idea!

  5. #815
    Been using barrelnuts for years, they are (imo) by far the best way to join plastic. All of Tormenta 2 is built with barrelnuts and not a single one has failed in 5 full combat events and countless live events.

  6. #816
    I had the same issues with db10s wheels during testing on the Mdf last year, lasting 2 fights at most.

  7. #817
    Quote Originally Posted by PJ-27 View Post
    Barrel nuts! That's a good idea!
    I know. Completely original idea that just popped into my head. Not influenced at all by any Spanish Costello people. Nope. Not one bit. Like, ever.

    But yeah it seems the most bulletproof method as you'd have to have the barrels (which are 16mm wide in my case) rip through the plastic in order for the fixing to fail. Also allows me to get a couple of machines back together that I thought would require new chassis parts due to threads and inserts wearing away.

    Think I'll stick to bike tyre for MDF-floored events then. The Banebots seem to last better on the metal-floored arena, and since that's the most important event, that's good enough for me.

  8. #818
    You copied someone else? Cant help but feel kinda cheated on now lol

    Banebots wheels are awesome for grip, but require constant maintenance... after every fight i clean 720s wheels with solvent, and get through 2 sets of wheels per champs... too much maintenance for a non pushy bot... thats why ive gone to colsons

  9. #819

  10. #820
    Update

    Alrighty! Time to kick this thing back into gear. Will be travelling down to Birmingham 3 weeks today, and there is much to be done! After weeks of planning, parts ordering and frustration at not being able to get back to my shed, I was finally able to start building on Monday and make a dent in the massive to-do list.

    So the bot is getting a new aluminium chassis this year as last year's was kinda gubbed. Same overall design as last year's but going up to 20mm thickness 6082 T6 grade, and dropping the chassis height down to 75mm to facilitate a move to 98mm Banebots wheels. Only problem is that the minimum height of metal pieces you can get from Aluminium Warehouse is 100mm, so most of Monday was spent milling, sanding and filing the body sections down to 75mm and to the correct lengths:



    This is where the size limitations of the mill show up; I wasn't able to do a full pass along the length of the bulkhead, so had to mill this fetching slot for the most part and then make a couple of cuts with the hacksaw and clean up the edges:



    Got the baseplate cut and mounted on Monday too and bolted the chassis together. Base is currently 3mm steel but as of today, the chassis on its own is weighing in at 3.9kg so it might need to get changed out for something lighter. Here's a basic comparison with the old chassis:



    Yesterday I made a start on getting things mounted. First up were the Banebots motors; these are a right pain to get lined up correctly for milling and drilling, especially since I'm just eyeballing everything at the moment, so I had to rejig a few holes and whatnot to get things mounted properly but got there eventually:



    Also cut slots for divider sheets to fit into the chassis width-wise, rather than having solid bulkheads fitted. As with a lot of this robot, this particular feature is already present on 720 and 722, so it's only right that I do it on the 718...err...Drumroll build

    Today focused on the finer details of a few parts. Cut a couple of holes in the battery divider for ESC and LED cables to pass through, a bit nicer than last year's cheese grade ali effort. The random larger hole in the middle of the top cutout is where I went in too far with the countersink when chamfering the edges, so I turned it into a design feature to cover up the error :P



    I also bored out and grub-screwedified the timing pulleys for the brushless motor and sorted out the mount for the related ESC. Was going to get the mount for the brushless motor made too but, as I went to fit it to the mill, I discovered my new boring head tool set was the wrong type and wouldn't fit, so that will have to wait until tomorrow. I used the remaining time to tidy up the edges of the baseplate, cut a recess in it at the front to accommodate the drum, and placed all the parts in to see how it looks:



    The chassis has a size increase of 5mm in both length and width and although it doesn't sound much, it's just given that little bit more space in the robot for components and workings. Once the replacement boring head is here, I'll be able to bore the pockets for the drum shaft and brushless bearing and, hopefully, the drum will arrive tomorrow too, so by the end of the week I should have everything in place and then the focus will turn to the smaller, but numerous, tasks that always need done and always take ages.

    Oh, and speaking of the drum:




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