Team Invade's Build Diary

[Team Invade]

So Combustion's done a few events now and everything's looking promising! First event at Ally Pally all went well, won it's first three fights even without a weapon and had no real issues. It had another run out at Durham where it had it's first breakdown, nothing major just the washer that holds the wheel on slipped around the screw and fell off, so those have been welded up fully which has hopefully solved the problem. Also I did that myself by throwing it about with Explosion so haven't got anyone else to blame!



Since then I've just been finishing off a few things on the spinner mechanism. First of all there's a new back bearing mount for the brushless which should hopefully help to support it a bit. I've also added some caps over the main shaft and bearings after the shaft began to slip out at the champs last year. That's been fastened to the pulleys with grub screws now but I believe the bearings can still slip out when they get quite warm so this should stop that from happening.

Also the teeth have finally been turned off the pulleys. Had a bit of a heart attack when I put it back together and the disc seemed to slip far too much, but I've tested it and it still gets up to the same speed and the spin-up only seems to be slightly slower. So hopefully that should help to protect the motor as others have said.

[daveimi]

This is really impressive, erm and frightening in equal measure!

[Mega Masher]

Great!
What motor is that? (The weapon motor)

[Team Invade]

Scorpion HK-4015-1450kv

[Mega Masher]

Thanks!

[Team Invade]

Fully striped/painted and ready for Thursday!

[Eventorizon]

Aren't you going to give the champ a lick of paint? Surely she has earned it!

[razerdave]

Apparently he is on the limit, and can't fill the tank fully if he paints it :P

[Team Invade]

It's tape not paint, and more tape means it is heavier which means less gas! Even without any tape on the flipper I doubt there'd be enough weight for a full 600g.

And it's always got scratches on it so it doesn't look right when it's freshly done

[Team Invade]

So Combustion came out of the champs relatively undamaged.

I've uploaded a couple of it's fights here: https://www.youtube.com/user/TeamInvade/videos




A few scratches and nicks out of the hardox but nothing more. Overall I'm really happy with it besides the disc cutting out in each fight. There were a variety of issues that arose and most of them got solved:

First of all the weapons link (anderson) kept on coming out due to the metal contacts inside becoming quite hot and hence too loose. So that has now been made into a "double link" (4x connectors instead of 2), and that seems to have solved the problem.

Then the disc stopped after we had sorted that out due to a dodgy connector on one of the lipos and so that got replaced.

The third issue that arose was due to the lipos themselves (these: http://www.hobbyking.com/hobbyking/s..._5S1P_40C.html) which have now been pointed out to us as one of the rubbish brands and best not to use. These worked fine for the drive, but were over-discharged by the weapon motor and caused the weapon to cut out. When we took them out they were very hot and had swollen (though shrunk again when they cooled down), so I think that's probably a good enough indication to change them!

So I need to find some better lipos to use for next year. The obvious place to start is OptiPower based on everyone's recommendations, but having looked, there are none of a suitable size. The smallest 5 cell lipos they sell are 3650mah, which is a big increase from the 2200mah lipos currently in the robot (two packs, one for the drive and one for the weapon), and so will not fit without major modifications.

The next best option I found were these: http://www.giantshark.co.uk/product/...s-lipo-battery

According to the statistics (if they are true) these should be a good upgrade; 55C up from 40C (according to hobbyking) and 110C burst up from 50C. But again I'm not too sure if this is reliable or whether these are yet again another rubbish brand. However I do seem to remember some people using Gens Ace lipos so I'm guessing they may be better than the hobbyking brands? Or if anyone has any other suggestions that would be much appreciated.