Tormenta 2 - Build Diary

**Ellis** · 1st July 2012, 11:58

Hi guys! About time I make this thread I reckon.

Tormenta 2. We're hoping this machine turns out to be what Tormenta could have been and more. Much of v1 will be reused in this machine. The whole drive train and control system will be the same, but made more reliable. We were very happy with Tormenta's drive so we will be sticking with its drills. All of its reliability problems came from the failure of plastic gears, so we will be using all metal. Speed control wasn't brilliant with the Electronize but it will do for the moment. We may look into more precise control if it becomes a problem.

The weapon will hopefully be more interesting. It's a big-drill powered lifter/flipper style thing, comparable to that of a certain famous American robot.

The chassis will be entirely HDPE (we may use some chopping board in low-risk places to keep the Tormenta spirit!), 10mm base, 20mm bulkheads and 10mm armour all round. If we have the weight left over I am hoping for a big steel wedge on the lifter, spanning more than the width of the robot.

We have 2 batteries, 4 drills, 1 mega drill, chains and sprockets, 3 ESCs, radio battery and receiver, all the wires, and God knows what else, to fit inside. This robot will be smaller than Tormenta. The inside width is 21cm, whilst the length (again, usable inside space) about 35cm.

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Think that pretty much covers it. We have made some progress with weapon test rigs, as you can see here: ... re=youtube

And all photos, as ever, will be going on a Photobucket album, here: http://s1088.photobucket.com/albums/i32 ... menta 2/

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Any questions, ask away. In the meantime I'm going to attack the drill shaft, as so far every attempt to secure the sprocket has failed. Next stop: cotter pins!

Ellis

**RogueTwoRobots** · 3rd April 2013, 20:59

Looking great Ellis, can't wait to see it at the weekend. And your journey, though longer, looks far more awesome

**Ellis** · 16th May 2013, 21:41

Been a while since I posted here.

Tormenta 2 is kind of in limbo. It's not quite dead enough to justify moving on completely, but it will take quite a lot of work to bring it back up to 100%.

We were killing gearboxes as regularly as ever up until the last day of Yeovil. There, after discussions at the pub the previous night, James/Grant/Nick donated some of their modified drill shafts that they made up to run in their kitbots. We did three fights after swapping them in at Yeovil and another four at Colchester without a failure. Looks like Tormenta 2's drive is finally getting there in reliability.

However after that happy note we got a direct hit from Major Damage at Colchester. The hammer hit the top bars square, and in doing so it has completely marmaladed (that's a word now) the threads that hold the sprocket adapter Mario made for us last year onto the weapon motor shaft. That will need to be completely rethought, as the threads on the drill are literally no longer there, and retapping makes no sense as it'll fail in the same way eventually.

Moving on to the inherent flaws of our design, the robot needs to be a lot tougher at the front. To make it tougher, we need to claw back some weight. I don't completely know how we'll do that yet, but by changing a few things I think we can get about a kg extra to play with. That shall go into a nice hardox plate on the front, and anything else that can be reinforced.

Another flaw is trying to use chain for ratio reduction as well as simple transmission. If it were 1:1 we could just up size the chain (it broke constantly at the champs and Yeovil, constantly...) but that isn't possible. So we're going to try a belt and pulleys. That ties in to what we do about the weapon motor shaft being mangled. I'm confident there's a way, though.

Otherwise it's basically alright. The pros and cons of the robot are more or less balanced, so our plan is to give it one last burst of life and let it run from there until it can't. We'll be taking it to Germany in September (to try and win this time!) and if it lives through that, we'll put it in for next year's champs.

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Tldr; Tormenta 2 is in a state but we're going to give it one more lease of life, despite it being in a bad way after the latest trip.

**Ellis** · 27th September 2013, 21:35

Well, that September trip never happened. Instead we went to the UK (just dad and I), more for family reasons, but as those who's hands we shook and who's bits of robot I used to make my beetle work will know, we got to the Deeside event with Gonzales. That's a different thread, though.
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I thought I had lost the fight footage of Tormenta 2 from Yeovil. It disappeared without trace for months, until a few weeks ago, when it was discovered on mum's PC... for... some reason. Either way, I just got around to uploading the fights.

You can see them near the top, here: http://www.youtube.com/user/TeamExpat/videos

Or, if preferred, the individual links, not necessarily in chronological order (can't make them links as it automatically makes them videos):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f6CY-Fy2XA8
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nro5Ii2J4SY
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PtIVjlbKWI0
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tDM6jMoEJyQ
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TcZCvt7BcNo
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g5oIwyhUqhU
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Bor7DXCEB8
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lu6Zdv4sv3Y

In robot terms this event was actually quite hard. Essentially every fight resulted in either a gearbox failing, or the chain breaking. Overall of course it was very relaxed, more people should go to the events held in Yeovil!

Anyway, I am very happy with some of the performances of the machine in the above fights. I think they're some of its strongest, which is odd, considering the robot got mauled just 3 days earlier at the champs. That scoop is some springsteel cement flattening whatsit from Wickes, properly bodged on. Yes, the enemies weren't super high end spinners, but still, this event showed us that the weapon concept works. Just thought I'd pop them up here as this is meant to be a diary for the thing. :P

These videos have refueled the want to get on and build Tormenta 3!

**Revsmin** · 29th December 2013, 17:27

Out of pure curiosity, will we be seeing Tormenta 2 back for 2014, or a new T3?

**Ellis** · 29th December 2013, 21:44

Pleased to hear someone is curious! Yes, we're going to git 'er going again for 2014, which basically involves adding as much hardox as the weight limit allows, haha.

There will be no Tormenta 3 for the next champs, my dad has had to spend lots of time in the UK (and will continue to) which means we won't have the time for a complete joint build. As a result, I am making a solo machine, provisionally called Rango. Once I get going on that I'll make a build diary. In any case, we'll definitely have one machine there!

**harry hills** · 29th December 2013, 21:48

Dude you totally misspelled the name, I thought we named her Nemo :'<

**Revsmin** · 29th December 2013, 21:59

Hardox doesn't weight that much more than mild steel TBH, and about the same as stainless. Good to know about T2, I knew there was still life in her! I greatly look forward to throwing you out the arena at the champs