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Thread: Team Invade's Build Diary

  1. #161
    It shouldn't. Most of the structural HDPE is 20mm thick and the top, bottom and side plates are 10mm and held on rigidly. On top of that, there will be Hardox at the front to protect it all. I'd be very impressed if any spinner managed to get through all of that and shatter the inner HDPE structure!

    The only time we've ever had any issue of HDPE cracking was one 4mm panel on Explosion when it fought NST, and even then it took a good few hits to do it. I can't really understand why often it is so brittle on other people's machines.

  2. #162


    We've finished the weapon setup (currently minus belts as we'll be testing without belts first!), painted the disc and fitted the Hardox. The Hardox still needs to be neatened and the all important stripes still need to be added, but that's an easy job, I've done it enough times! We've still to to wire it up, which we'll do tomorrow. Not weighed it recently but I'm pretty certain it's around 1kg overweight, which could have been worse. There are plenty of ways to lose that kilo but unfortunately there's not enough time for the champs. Not too much of an issue for now anyway as it's only for whiteboards this year

  3. #163
    Inertia XL is looking good

  4. #164
    I have tried to make it look as different as possible! To be honest if you compare them they don't look that similar. The chassis is a pretty different shape and the only things they really share in common are the disc, the width and the wheels at the back.

    Anyway Heatwave's a lot more similar to Explosion then this is to Inertia so I'm probably still a bit more original

  5. #165
    Quote Originally Posted by Team Invade View Post
    Anyway Heatwave's a lot more similar to Explosion then this is to Inertia so I'm probably still a bit more original
    Not any more :P

  6. #166
    Well it used to be then

    Anyway we've wired it up, and after a bit of difficultly with the Brushless ESC it drives and spins (minus belts). First spin up will be for the tech check All that's left to do is cut two holes for the links and put the all-important stripes on, which can be done quickly on the day.

  7. #167
    Finally got round to giving Explosion some maintenance after the UK champs:




    Overall it came out of the UK champs a lot better than it did last year. We've only had to replace the front (triangle) panels and the bits that the eyes sit in. The frame was pretty badly twisted though so we had to cut several pieces of it off and re-weld them to get it straight again. Having said that it still managed to carry on through Colchester and Burgess Hill without any attention and seemed to do as well as ever

  8. #168
    This week I've started on the rebuild of Combustion, which was pretty much untouched since the champs last year. Now we're on the winter break I've finally had time to start! The biggest problem was that it weighed 14.6kg, so I've changed the drive system to a lighter (and hopefully faster and more powerful) system, and rebuilt a smaller chassis around it.



    That's the new chassis above. Still 20mm HDPE, 10mm HDPE base and 20mm Nylon spinner bulkheads as before. The 20mm HDPE is pretty much completely new, and I've reduced the base considerably to fit it. The nylon bulkheads remain the same for now but I'm going to alter those to fit the new shape better and reduce the wedge (I found last time the disc was too far up the wedge). It currently weighs 4kg, but as I've said the nylon will be cut down which should save at least 500g.

    I've put the old armour pieces in place which shows it is quite considerably smaller:



    I've also weighed it with parts and it's approximately 10kg. That leaves 3.6kg for HDPE top panels (which I'm estimating to be about 0.5kg each) and hardox armour, so it's looking more feasible than last year.

    The most major internal change will be the drive system. The old feather gold system was heavy so it's getting changed to some new drill motor drives. I'm also taking out the sidewinder (which as well as being heavy took up a lot of space), and I've got a new Scorpion XXL to put in, which is lighter and smaller. We've made our own motor/gearbox set-up out of some Dewalt drills, shown below:



    This is in a near finished state. The second one's coming along quite well also so they should be done in a couple of days. So soon the next job will be to mount those in and make the top panels. Until then the main chassis needs a few more screws here and there and a bit of neatening up. Enough to keep me busy

  9. #169
    Looking good! Are you going to enter it in the main competition next year?

    Also, what motor/gearbox reduction do those drives have? Looks like a 775, but only guessing. Am trying to gauge how much I should worry about being able to escape the weapon in terms of speed.

  10. #170
    Obviously I'm driving Explosion in the main comp to defend the title this year so it'll probably just be for whiteboards again. Don't really fancy entering an untested robot into the main competition so if my dad happens to want to drive something (which is unlikely), he'll have Annihilation anyway. Just want to get it working reliably for now and possibly think about entering it when Explosion stops doing so well.

    The motors are Dewalt 18V 775s, we've modified the gearbox, which used to have a three stage reduction, and taken out one stage that wasn't used for the higher speed setting to shorten it. Not too sure how it'll drive but it should be quite fast. The motors seem to be more powerful than the 775s in Explosion so going by that it should be quite good (if it works). I'm aiming to have it driving by January to give it a couple of test drives at the event in Alexandra Palace when Explosion's not ready to go in.

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