Novice Here - Any Beginner's Advice?

[Ocracoke]

From my experience, a half good featherweight need not cost the Earth.My featherweight cost me about £250-£300ish in its current form and was able to stand up to a spinner. Admittedly, Beetleweights are cheaper - the one I am building at the moment hasn't cost me north of £100 so far.

Dremel - I use this one, hasn't let me down yet.

Batteries (I've only just learnt this as well so I could well be wrong here) - So take a battery that has a rating of 1800 milliamps and is labelled "3S1P" and has a constant discharge of 30C and a burst rating of 40C. The 3S1P thing relates to how many cells there are in the battery wired in series (S) and parallel (P).

For a Lithium Polymer battery (LiPo), each cell has a nominal voltage of 3.7v, so this battery has a total voltage of 11.1v (3S x 3.7v). For a Lithium Iron Phosphate battery (LiFe), it is 9.9v total (3S x 3.3v).

The C rating is a multiplier to the amperage of the battery so in this case, the battery can deliver a constant 30 x 1.8amps and a burst of 40 x 1.8amps.

As I say, read through the build diaries for what folks are commonly using in their robots. I am fairly sure the choice I made with my Beetleweight may need revising in the future.