Budget heavyweight components?

Planning for the future here, wanting to build myself a heavyweight in the future, but as with all of my projects it'll have to be under a pretty low budget. I do realise that a lot of components are relatively expensive though in heavies, like the speed controllers and all that...

Are there any viable substitutes to the common parts that could allow me to build a decent enough heavy for, say, under £150? I was thinking merely a 4WD box with a lifter type thing and I'll be able to get decent enough materials for the job but my main concern at the minute is to do with motors having enough power, batteries, speed controllers and so on... I already have featherweight parts (for about 14.4v), but I doubt they'd be powerful enough for a heavy, would they? I know this is probably going to involve a lot of scavenging for random parts in scrapyards, and it probably won't be the most competitive thing in the world (as with all of my robots, let's be fair) but I'd like to give heavyweight building a go!

Thanks in advance!

No. I've spent over £150 & I couldn't get into the arena under my own power.

For £150 I think with very careful spending and finding cheap second hand parts it could just about be done, excluding materials. You would have to buy an electric wheelchair and use the motors, wheels, and rig up some servos to the control joystick. Then use those batteries or buy some cheap SLAs. but it would not be very competitive and I very much doubt you could get an active weapon on there.

Well Dave Lawrie and I had a similar goal back in 2006 to build a heavyweight for next to nothing.
Our mission was simple. How much where we willing to put in each to have a completely expendable heavy. We had 300 pounds in total and after using 80% of a decent wheel chair chassis, a speedo which was servos hitting micro switches and relays and finally a ton of ply wood. We had a heavy.

http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images...1lv0.jpg/?sa=0
http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images...hxp0.jpg/?sa=0

He fought once and survived but had a technical fault in the pits and died from mass rain at the outside event.

It wasn't fixed because we were so happy with the internals we turned it into cabraken with Dave Weston joining our strange heavyweight venture

Attachment 3930


This was designed to be indestructible and just a fun robot to bring to events and fight for a bit of fun. Budget was a bit higher but not silly money. Less then 500 I think. Mainly had 25mm hdpe bulkheads. Steel angle, bolts and 6mm steel armour. SLA batterys and a wotty which I used in my feather.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=si3fAkh442I

However it wasnt indestructible and an aspect which I didn't consider was that you need to be prepared to replace every part which could fail. We lost a motor which wasn't replaceable as it was from a very specialized mobility wheel chair. Which meant we had to get new wheels and the robot didn't feel the same.

So I dont know if my adventures in cheap heavyweights will help but thought I would share it. Maybe I would suggest you grab a wheel chair and have a bit of fun but be prepared to lose it all. Dave Lawrie had good success solo by using pre built motors and gearboxes from robot market place.

Thanks for the responses!

I guess £150 is pushing it a bit, from the sounds of things... I'll have a look for some wheelchair motors though and the like, off for a scrapyard visit soon to try and find some parts!

What sort of technical fault too, if you don't mind me asking? Just interested for planning ahead with what could go wrong with mine! Glad to hear you pulled it off though, does sound a good way to do it with a wheelchair chassis - Might have a look on Ebay, see if I can spot anything on there too! Thanks! :)

That robot looks pretty nippy to be fair

It was a lovely robot. Quiet quick as it ran at 36 volts and at that point I think the motors where close or equal to a bosch 750
I was on holiday during the death of one of its motors but what I heard off Dave was one of the large long bolts holding the motor end cap in place undone it self over time and wrecked having on the motor windings.
Couldn't find a spare motor for close to a reasonable price and the wheel chair usually sells for over 200-300 pounds (we bought ours for a bargain 130)
So we put in smaller wheel chair motors and wheels and as said it didn't run the same.