Questions/builds thread.

Yeh, nylon 6 also gets more brittle in the cold, we were makeing some new side panels last year, and huge chunks broke of, as we were using an electric planer on it...

Well, it's been a while! We're back at it again, now that my dad's work has opened up a little. We've spent the past few days designing and starting to build our lifter. We're going for a 4-bar, conventional drill and threaded rod, etc. We've cut some 2cm x 2cm box steel and got it into the right shape, welding (when I say welding I mean... uh :roll:) a little along the way. Tomorrow we'll do some more cutting and *cough* welding and gradually piece it together. Hard to explain what we're doing, I'll put pics up as we go.

Today we bought some bits and bobs to make the legs for the lifter, so once we have the design in place the actual build process shout be quite quick. Tomorrow we'll order the 15a Electronize ESC for the lifter motor (we thought it would be nice to have it proportional). Our motor mount is going to be quite interesting, it involves circles of wood/plastic, a T of PVC and rubber bands :rofl:.

The weight limit is slowly creeping up on us. The machines currently weighs a bit over 8kgs. We will probably have several kilos of lifter business, leaving us with not all that much to make it spinner and axe proof.

Will keep this posted. :)

I believe there are better options to control a lifter mech than a 15a ESC. Never built one so I don't know what it is, but thought I'd warn you before you fork out.

I've in the past thought about using car electric window relays, as these stop when a current past a certain amount is drawn (when the window can't go any further and the motor stalls) but that's me thinking with my Bitza hat on.....

i use a 15a electronize for my lifter, seems fine.

Aren't you worried about stalling it?

i used one for my claws, very reliable system, just a shame my claws were crap :lol:

lifted a heavyweight shell without blowing so its a pretty good system

If the lifter goes to plan it shouldn't stall when lifting an opponent. It will probably only lift half the weight of another machine in combat, and considering the motor unit can lift 60kgs comfortably at 12v without slowing down, it should be able to lift 8ishkgs in battle at 18v in its sleep, even with the ratios in mind. The only points at which it could stall are when it's fully extended or fully retracted, though with the precision of the proportional control and some practice that shouldn't be too much of a problem. Even if I do overshoot, the Electronize are tough little buggers, I think it'll be fine.

Hopefully some pics will come later today.

i use to run a lifter on an electronize switch smae principle as you are running on but the travel was stopped by limit swithces avoiding the possibility (in theory) of it ripping itslef apart

I don't quite understand how limiting switches can be setup. My mind immediately takes me to micro-switches that are activated by the arm when it passes them, killing the circuit and thus limiting its travel. Of course though, that doesn't work; the circuit is broken and the arm can't be retracted.

So, how do I do it?