Possible Ant

Hi all,

Considering making an antweight for Brize Norton next month funds pending, a quick few questions first though.

What are the rules regarding spinners and links i.e do you need a removable link for an antweight spinner?

When using servo boards to drive gear motors do they need any modification or can they be used as is?

How do others attach their spinning weapons to the motors? i've seen a fair few pictures but i can't for the life of me figure it out just from looking.

Any help is much appreciated.

The antweights have their own set of rules (http://robotwars101.org/ants/rules.htm) which are worth looking through if you haven't already.

Antweights usually use either the battery plug as the removable link, or a switch is often more convenient. Some way of switching it off easily is required for all ants.



Servo boards need to have the position sensing potentiometer replaced with a pair of resistors to give it a fixed reference; there's plenty of tutorials on how to do this around. Also have to make sure the board comes from a big servo so it can provide enough power to drive the gear motor.


As for mounting spinner blades, I'm not too sure on that. You'll have to go through some of the photos on the RW101 forum to get some ideas.

Right going to attempt an antweight spinner to hopefully get to Brize Norton with as well as the Beetle, won't be starting building until next month but i thought i'd do a quick run down of what i'm planning. It's going to be an antweight version of Buzzbar as i've always liked the design, at this stage it's affectionately called Buzz. Specs at the moment are as follows but subject to change..

1.5mm PCB board baseplate as recommended by Dave Weston

1mm Polycarbonate body shell

2 X ebay ant gearmotors, you all know the ones i mean

2 Servo Board Esc's to keep it relatively cheap and simple

This weapon motor http://www.hobbyking.com/hobbyking/s...arehouse_.html

Possibly this Lipo http://www.hobbyking.com/hobbyking/s...arehouse_.html

This weapon ESC http://www.hobbyking.com/hobbyking/s...arehouse_.html

The weapon ATM will be a 3mm stainless steel blade, nothing too fancy at this stage, going to drill holes to lighten the center and make the ends wider so it should have a fair bit of energy in it.

As always thoughts and advice are welcome

Made a start today on the antweight weapon, it's by no means finished just rough cut and it needs the centre hole cutting and some lightening and tidying up. The Eagle eyed amongst you may have noticed it's cut from an old bar blade/bottle opener. http://i921.photobucket.com/albums/a...psba650035.jpg

Bit more progress, cut out the baseplate from a piece of 1.5mm PCB, everything *should* fit inside if the sizes stated online are correct. All of the components will be ordered next month so if they don't fit i do have a spare piece. http://i921.photobucket.com/albums/a...ps0d5b2410.jpg

The PCB I use is blank, no copper on it, just to forewarn you that I would remove it, both for weight and, if you get one loose wire, the whole thing becomes conductive.

The copper is only only one side so i might just duct tape over it unless weight is a real issue, if it is then i'll remove it but i'm slightly worried how that will affect the overall strength.