Help with my build.

Hello all, Ive set myself a budget of £100 a month to build my new bot Work In Progress. Well I thought the name sounded good, if you dont like it then sod ya.

The design is for a 4WD spinner proof wedge shaped rammer. Powered with 4 Golds, controlled by 2 30amp electrolizes and powered with Ni-Cads. Am planning on using 4mm plate for the bulkheads as Ive got a lot of the stuff. Might double it up if needs be and bolt it together with ali angle.

How is this spinner proof? Well the ali holds the bot together and spreads the load. The bot will have inch thick square bar bolted on every six inchs and this will take the spinner blows.

So onto help. Now that Ive moved to London, I need a college where I can work on machining the parts in the evening. In otherwords an engineering non-curriculum based evening course as I went to in Dunstable college.

Failing that some fabrication help at lowish cost. Either from another buider or a machine shop.

Long before that, I need some FREE CAD assistance, anyone know a good GNU licence CAD package. Dont need rendering but 3D is essential.

For the Ni-Cads with 4 Golds what Ah rating am I going for and can anyone suggest a UK supplier apart from technobots if its anything but 3ah.

Any help would be great, looks of help would be even greater :-0

Well Dan, without sounding rude or wanting to knock the wind out of your sales here, your going to be over weight if you try to use 4 golds, with gearing and 4mm plate bulkheads (i ammsume by plate you mean plate steal). Also even with external relays electronise 30ampers will struggle to run 2 golds each. My suggestion would be to run with 2 golds and have gear reduction to one set of wheels and then slave the other set either by belts or by chain.

THe only way to be spinner proof is not to fight spinners. Spinners may not be able to get through your armour but they can do other things, like knock out wires, cause shock damage or knock out your removable link etc so its impossible to be 100% spinner proof.

As for cad I am afraid i cannot help there, I use autocad, autocad light and rhinocerous all of which are licence based but perhaps others can help.

Regards
Ian

Dan, a really good place to go look is

http://www.matweb.com/tools/weight-calculator.asphttp://www.matweb.com/tools/weight-calculator.asp

Will help you get an idea of how much parts of your robot will weigh before you commit to metal.

Ed
http://www.teamstorm.comhttp://www.teamstorm.com

Dan I use Gmax which I can email you the setup program or you can download it from discreet. It is a basic 3d package its what ive used for a few feathers now.

Hi Dan Ive built a 4 wheel box with wedge at front . Drive Ive used 4 x 18v drill motors gives good speed. Speed controllers 2 x 15amp electronize. Armour 20mm nylon all round, 10mm Ti on the front and 4mm Hardox on the sides and back. As Dan says nothing is spinner proof they have not got through the armour but when they hit you, you tend to get thrown half way across the arena. So your insides need to be shocked proof. I mount my speedos useing velcro but you need to get the heavy duty type, it holds them in but gives a bit of shock proofing.

Without sounding rude or wanting to knock the wind out of your sales here.

Every businesss worst nightmare.

Ian I was thinking 4mm ali not steel. Does ye think Im maaaaaaaaaaaaaad.

On the electrolize front I was curious, so your thoughts are appreciated on that note. Seen as Im going for no weapon I do need power. Any ideas? (Dont suggest Astros please.)

Spinner proof, yes I know no-one can design perfect armour. But it doesnt stop one from trying. We cant just throw our arms up at spinners. So Ill try a few things a see what happens.

Thanks for the site Ed, that will help a lot.

Ed W, Ill get onto you about Gmax thanks.

I have also taken the shockproofing into account. I dont know how Im going to do it, but I have taken it into account. Was thinking of placing the controllers/radio gear loosely in foam to increase crash time. Also going to restrict cable motion as much as possible so they dont develop to much momentium when I get thwacked across the arena. Reducing the number of broken connections.

BTW is there a minimum requirement of Eds in every thread!!!

Tony I checked your site out, thats a lot of bots :-)

Any thoughts on battery power for 4 golds and suggested speedo setup?

you dont need 4, Alpha and Omega run well on 2 24v golds, they both have a similar speed/torque but ones 2wd and Omega is 4wd. Both using 15amp cpu electronize, although relays would need to be replaced after about a year (saying that they did run in alot of fights).

You could look at overvolting the 12v golds, stiff breeze does this and run very well on 6wd. But you will need some good speedos, modified 30amp electronize might do it, but i would be looking at something bigger.

For batteries look here:
http://www.modelpower.co.ukwww.modelpower.co.uk
http://www.overlander.co.ukwww.overlander.co.uk

Alpha use to run 3Ah botpacks but due to weight now runs 2.4ah, alot of people use the 2.4ah sanyo cells.

http://www.blazerbotics.co.ukwww.blazerbotics.co.uk

Dan,
you might want to rethink your name. Work In Progress was the name of our first heavyweight and, whilst that bot no longer exists (other than the frame, somewhere :)), it is still our team name.

Weve had a break this year but we will be back to competition in 2006 so there might be a little confusion if there are two Work In Progress teams present.

Richard