Believe thats just the gearbox and the motor has yet too be secured in as it goes through the side wall
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Believe thats just the gearbox and the motor has yet too be secured in as it goes through the side wall
http://i1088.photobucket.com/albums/i32 ... 202/15.png
yes you're right, checked his CAD :)
Yeah, the motor will go through the side. Not brilliant but, eh, again, it just can't be any smaller!
Yes we'll put something around the drive motor to protect it. When the chain is under tension it should clear quite nicely, but a bit of PVC won't go amiss. We didn't predict the magnetism of the motor being an issue, though! Surprisingly strong pull.
The motor is just a biggish 14.4v drill motor. It's 50mm in diameter as against to the drill motor size of about 36mm. The high resulting RPM of putting more like 20v through it is being turned down to 120rpm with no load, so there's a pretty big reduction. Hopefully it'll have the power. Actually occurred to me that if we can get the right pinion we could stick a Speed 900 in there!
The output shaft on most cheapy drill motors is usually very small, so the pinion gear is equally tiny. A Speed900 has a 6mm output shaft so you may struggle.
Sewer Snakes weapon motor is subject to a 75:1 reduction. I reckon if you test it early stages and it can lift 20 kg's (fast) the it will be effective. Its got to be fast and furious, if its to behave like Sewer Snakes.
That's the thing. The motor is by no means huge. Just compared a Speed 900 to the motor we have, a 900 is about a cm longer, and it weighs about 200g more. The output shaft on our motor is 5mm, I think.Quote:
Originally Posted by Gabe01
It would probably be possible to do, actually. If we had to. Quite a lot of $$$ though.
We did some tests as you saw in the videos, and it didn't seem to struggle at all. It lifted about 5-6kg on a 7inch bar without the further 4:1 reduction on a bad battery when we first got the drill, which would suggest it'll do around 20kgs.
We shall see! We haven't completely ruled out buying a drive motor for a bigger robot as a way to do it. This will lift a FW, I'm quite confident of that, it's when it lifts itself+another machine (which will happen quite a lot I think) that we may struggle.
Matt Maxham the guy that built Sewer Snake is a really friendly guy. I emailed him a while back because I wanted to make a similar robot, but that's yet to happen.
I think he's also on this forum, but not very active.
I take it you've seen this vid?:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pt6_dXKwQYw
Yes, I had seen it. I love how rugged it is. We're trying to do the same. Precision isn't our thang (in that we can't really have it, lol).
Been a while since we made progress, and MMM is suddenly REALLY SOON so we're going to try and crack on and finish now. We didn't do much tonight, made a Swiss-cheese style piece of HDPE with a total of 13 holes in it! Should do the trick though, it's to do with mounting the lifter motor.
We haven't gone ahead and finalised the lifter motor position yet as it's probably best to get the actual lifty bit built first. To do that we need scoop material. It's on a shallow angle so about 4mm steel would be great, but it may be impossible. Assuming we can source some locally, it may simple be too heavy. In which case 10mm HDPE might do. For the UK champs most likely not, but for MMM where I believe the competition won't be quite as lethal it could get us out of trouble. Better on the lifter motor too; lighter.
Mentioning that, the lifter gearbox is a 2-speed and so it has a sliding plastic ring gear inside. We fear it will fail, as we're over-volting and putting massive stresses through it. It's quite a complicated shape. It's similar to this: click - any idea if we could get such a thing made out of stronger material? And if so, where? If anyone can suggest a company we'll love you for ever and ever!
I believe one of the gearbox settings doesn't use that ring, but which one I can't remember...... Pretty sure it's the low range.
If you're using the high then don't worry about it. If you're using low then do....
without knowledge and the access to the correct machines it would be hard to replicate that, and you wanted someone to do it say out of ali it is doable looking at that picture but looks very time consuming->expensive
Yes we're using the low range, and so it comes into play. I don't think the thing will have the grunt on the higher speed, and even if it did (in fact it won't I am certain) it would make the lifter move at some 300rpm which would be impossible to control. :P
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That is what I had feared. I hoped it might be a model-it-up-and-make-it-up type thing for the right company. I mean it was made out of plastic, I don't know how, but if it was machine made then surely the same machines could handle something like ali? We may be able to find spares, and it may be absolutely fine, so we're not completely stuffed. Worst comes to very worst we use a better suited motor, though that would be expensive and set us back in progress quite a bit.
As before, if anyone knows of a company that might be able to do that sort of thing, please share.
Looking at it, it should be fairly easy to cast meaning you could get it make it from iron, steel or aluminium if you can find a company which does casting. I know that hpc gears (I think that's their name) do inside out gears with the teeth on the inside. If you can find one with the same pitch then you could use that (unlikely I know). Also does it mesh with plastic or metal gears, if plastic then they may stip if you replace that part with metal.
Meshes with metal gears. It's the only plastic component. Interesting that you say casting. I hadn't really considered it as I didn't think casts could get that precise, could they?
Just looked at its exact role in the gearbox and I'm not confident exactly, but no longer convinced it will fail. It has 2-3 teeth from 5 gears that are about 8mm wide meshing with it at all times. For it to strip, they would all have to strip through at the same time. That's a heck of a lot of material to push through, isn't it? And I mean, it's in pretty good condition, and this drill was found in a battered way at the dump. It clearly had some hard use before we got to it. If it were a weak point I'd expect to see more in the way of deterioration.
It is in the second of 3 stages, meaning it's not under the major stress of the last stage. It might just be okay. I guess we have to build it and then find out! (joy!)
I'll look into casting possibilities. Thanks.
Looks like the gear selector in the 18v Dewalts I use in Nyx. Assuming similar quality/strength, I'm not sure it'll be a huge issue, as I was snapping the x-spline shafts on the Dewalts before I put a torque limiter on the weapon drive, which means it was handling some pretty high shock loads, as the shaft was supposedly capable of handling a load of 120ft-lb.
Well that's both comforting and worrying at the same time! Nice to know the nylon rings have some guts, not particularly nice to know the shaft of the thing might be at risk :P ... By the way, do you have any footage of Nyx flipping itself about? I'm interested to see more of it. Beautiful looking machine!Quote:
Originally Posted by MikeNCR
We just made up our chain tensioner, and we're heading out to get a 20mm metal drill bit. Going to be expensive.
Thanks all.
Couldn't you put a ring form the dewalt in your drill? It might work :)
Sadly it's probably very unlikely they'd be a match. ^
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Pretty big progress today, we have built the basic components of the lifter (save a movement limit or two). You can start to see it now! Pictures - http://s1088.photobucket.com/albums/i32 ... menta 2/
Looking good!
I've got a video of some spike testing here- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f9MLRGWG5nE
The first event with the torque limiter and the spike is in a few weeks, so more video will be coming soon.
Look forward to it! Looks like the machines will have similar power on the arm(s).Quote:
Originally Posted by MikeNCR
Well I am hoping to sell my PS3 to free up enough money for an upgrade to ESCheap85s. Would be really nice if we can do it. We need to get a new ESC for the lifter anyway so one of the drive's Electronize would go into that, giving us a spare.
Can anyone promise me it'll be worth it? I mean, it's double the cost of just another 30a Electronize, and if we want to get to an event to compete with the thing at all we need to save as much as we can. My gut says it's worth it, but it would be nice to hear it from someone who has them already!
Thanks. :lol:
It has more than double the amps! How can you lose!
At the moments I have bought the brushless tz85a and hacked it myself.
I'm going to order a few more as well as the plush30a.
They are brilliant speed controllers for the money. They are very precise in controll, especially around the enter of the sticks. The built I braking makes them good aswell, but you may not want that if you are using it as a lifter esc, but sadly you cannot change that without reprogramming them.
I think thy are better than the electronizes( electronizes are still good though!) so they would win me over as they have a better switch over time,built in bec and and more precise and very responsive and can take 55 more continuous amps and 60 more burst amps(110a burst).
Why not just use switches and relays to control the lifter?
Matt doesn't use limit switches, or torque limiters, he just slams it up and down and knows that it has plenty of travel before it'll reach it's mechanical limits.
I want better drive motor control! :lol:
I tried a bang-bang speed controller for laser 1 and that didnt work well. it didnt even have limit switches.Quote:
Originally Posted by PJ-27
Laser2's lifter system is a lot better with a proper esc and limit the swithces.
The next gen of Laser will have a giant lifter motor run off a tz85a and have better limit switches.
Limit switches and a decent esc are a must for lifters if you ever want to win a fight :D
Our lifter won't have limit switches, just a 30a ESC. I think it'll be too fast for limit switches to make much sense really. If I'm careful it should be fine.
The Electronize drive ESCs are just a bit simple in their approach. They work flawlessly, and for the money, when we bought them, nothing came close to as good. They make fantastic learning ESCs. I fear if we had gone for something more delicate, we'd have lost it in a puff of smoke somewhere along the line. :P
I am hoping the 85s will offer greater flexibility for future projects, and they'll bring Tormenta 2 into the contender-range drive wise. The drive power is definitely there, despite being only drills. Hopefully, if I can learn to drive like a human, some better ESCs will do it justice.
ESCheap85s have been ordered!
Not a massive update but quite a significant one, tonight we got much of the lifter and shaft business built permanently. No welding involved, it can all be taken apart. We reckon it's strong enough. :wink:
Pics: http://s1088.photobucket.com/albums/i32 ... menta 2/
All together it weighs about 47kgs. :)
47kgs? Gonna struggle to get that in weight :lol:
Nah, there's a good 17kg in the batteries alone. :P
Really liking the look of that weapon action! Those arm extensions could easily see you getting some OOTA's! And like the last one its all white and shiny... apart from the forks, they need shinying up! Shiny-shiny!
Oh yes, what can be made shiny shall be shinied (lol). Thanks mate.
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Today/tonight we did quite a bit. We got the locking bolts for the lifter in, so it can now theoretically self-right from all positions. We have also mounted a good bit of the lifter motor gearbox. If we get stuck in tomorrow we may even get to a test stage with the lifter!
Pics of the progress on photobucket as always: http://s1088.photobucket.com/albums/i32 ... menta 2/
More progress, more!
The lifter motor and gearbox is fully in. Took some doing, but it's straight and solid. Unless we find something very wrong, all that is left before testing the weapon is the chain tensioner and to stick a Deans on the motor.
pics: http://s1088.photobucket.com/albums/i32 ... menta 2/
Starting to look cool!
Also, we weighed it, and we have about 2kg left for the scoop, side armour, top panel and a load of nuts and bolts. Going to be tight!
Awesome!! really like the way it self-rights in any position it can find itself in, and it does it in style! Well done :wink:
Very very nice. Now get some li-po's so you have weight to armour it!
That looks brilliant! Well done for getting it moving so early, ours are just bits mainly.
What is going on the side? More plastic? I am a little worried that it wont stand up to any spinners if you get caught on the side.
Thanks guys. Yeah we're pretty happy with it!
LiPos may end up being a necessity, but I think we'll get it in weight with the NiMHs. They may start to struggle to put the power out if all 5 motors are blazing at once, so we'll see.
The sides will be 10mm HDPE. They should be pretty solidly mounted (across 4 points; front shaft, chocks between the wheels and a bolt at the back), so hopefully they'll just get slashed instead of ripped off!
do you think 10mm hdpe will be enough? I'm sure it will not break like a chopping board :lame: but it just might get punctured, its a bit soft you know - think I'll add a thin sheet of steel on mine say 2mm at strategic points...
We did 7 battles with badly mounted 6mm HDPE sides on Tormenta and they hardly got touched. NST got us right in the front of Tormenta, admittedly doing big damage to other things before reaching the HDPE, but the 10mm that it hit got a little sliced and that's it.
Fairly confident it'll be fine... Explosion manages with just 5-6mm!