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Right, thanks.
How would I attach the shaft to the robot itself? Could I use rotating bearings either side of it to hold it in place, and use a couple more closer to the timing pulley?
EDIT: Ignore that, I've just realised that the pulley can rotate on a fixed shaft.
Popping in for another question: Though I intend to use two motors with the hacked TZ85as, is it possible that they could run two 12v motors each? Or would that be too much stress?
They should handle two standard drill-size motors easily, as they do in our setup. I have never even felt them get warm, either when we were running 12v motors at 18v nor now, with the motors being 18v and the gearbox ratios being lower.
Righty, Thanks. So, I've spent a couple more hours in what seems to be a blazing sun today attaching a little scoop/wedge to the robot. pretty well held on by my standards, but I just can't get it to bend, so that it's flush. It just makes the robot's front stick up a couple centimetres.
How would I fit a needle roller bearing to the robot, so that the shaft spins? Or, how would I fit the shaft to spin, through 4 20x20mm bars?
More questions, as usual.
Where can I find 18v Limit switches, suitable for the sort of stresses that a feather produces?
Finally, progress! Took two drills apart, managed to get the motors working properly. I never knew Argos Drills had metal gears. Pretty good for £12. Did most of it last night, but got fed up when a trio of ball bearings refused to come out. I took the gearbox casing off, they popped right out. (Not without stabbing myself with the screwdriver. Multiple times.)
Well, it's back to square 2.5, as the robot... Imploded, really. The place where the bars joined was melted, not welded, so as I was drilling (Managed to break a drill bit, and hurt me thumb :cry:) The side snapped in on itself. Tomorrow, I'll be ordering a 1000 by 500 mm by 12mm Sheet of HDPE, and I'm going to make something hopefully working. A four wheel (Chain Driven) Two motor axe bot. Made from HDPE and a layer of steel.
sounds good, but any chance of some photos to find out whats going on?
Sure, I'll take some in a bit, and edit this post. I can't be bothered to save up for a welder and weld it back, it'll most likely do the same. Not quite sure about how the drive is going to work out, might end up going with scooter motors, in a four wheel or two wheel setup.
http://i.imgur.com/Vqo1pGS.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/1y7TuKY.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/Bx5fhPV.jpg
Looks worse than I remember.
Finally, I've got my HDPE, and I've already made a base from it. 425mm by 365mm. Tempted to do a short pyramid design, give it a better wedge.
Well, after a bit of news regarding drill motors, and their lack of capability for weapons, I've been scouting around for something less failure prone under stress. When I found nothing, I decided to, instead of make an immediate amazing robot, get used to building from scratch by building a little fun, but combat useful bot. Going to go with a design that hasn't been used in ages over here.
I don't mean to say they're useless for weapons, only the small drills for fast moving weapon types seem to struggle. We used a normal small drill in our first robot's lifter weapon and it lasted easily, even with plastic gears. Partly luck in that we fought no huge verticals, mostly because it was slow and steady and not jerky.
Good luck with what you build anyhow. :)
I'd still prefer to use something better than a second hand Draper drill for a weapon. Might go with a scooter motor for the axe, but I do want to go with a somewhat Shunt-like system, but a little less professional. As for the cheapo first attempt (As not to use up too much of my HDPE, £44 of the stuff) Made of chopping boards.
___
/___/ Something like that, with a wedge either way. Might add a weapon, such as a faux 4 bar lifter. A similar system, but a bit odd. Tomorrow, I'll be getting some P clips, to mount the drills, and try and get things joined, using a mix of bolts and HDPE Welding.
So, the cheap/cheerful bot is almost finished, going to make some bang-bang Motor Controllers, via servo and microswitch, when I get them. Going to cut the sides from 12mm, soon, a top if necessary. I want to make it as cheap as possible, while still effective. I'm still debating whether I should, or can put a simple lifter on it, just to make it a bit more fun.
Attachment 3838Attachment 3839
Tiny bit of progress today, got the rest of my parts ordered, and I've cut out some sides, 50mm tall. Going to be quite a small bot, but it allows a weapon. I've been thinking of some names, and with nothing towards the spirit of the entire team, I've gone with McCheapo, for now. Should be running (Somewhat) by the start of the School summer holidays, hopefully.
Haha, loving the name.
Looking forward to seeing your version of bang bang controllers
My first version had servos with screws attached making conections with other screws. It was amazing.
It's not exactly my version. Well, not at all, it just presses limit switches, but since the servo auto centres, and I'm using a failsafing Orange RX (With the cheapest E-Flite controller available), it should have less to go wrong. Actually, with my luck, it'll work perfectly, until Kenny comes along (Again) and takes a chunk from my HDPE, via Cobolt. I'm definitely keeping the name though.
From the look of it so far, however, it is quite robust, as I've been using M8 Bolts. Well, two so far, with one part of the side mounted, but there's no wobble. Gonna drill, cut, and jigsaw the most odd, slanted, dodgy robot that you really don't want to meet in a dark alley. Like a feral clown.
Finally got round to mounting the motors, with the pipe holders (Basically these). Couldn't find anything bigger than 40mm so I struggled to mount the front one properly, but it works. Did a little flipped stress test, by dropping it from roughly 5 ft. No rattles, visible damage, and none of the bolts have come loose. Luckily, the rubber on the mounts works as a basic shock absorber.
So, I've pretty much completed the microswitch speed controllers, the servos work well.
The problem is, that the age old Planet T5 has gone kaput. The right stick doesn't work at all, so I'm considering binning it. I've checked every wire I can see, and everything seems okay, but I'll probably bring it to the next event to see if anyone knows what's up.
In the mean time, I'll be saving for a DX5e/i/whatever works, as I've already got an unused OrangeRX.
An actual build update this time!
Anyway, I've got some wheels on the drills, after a few painstaking hours. Seeing as I want to save the Robochallenge Blue wheels (Unfortunately not arrived yet, been a couple weeks) for a proper build, so I popped out and got some stabilizers, a blowtorch (For attempting to weld HDPE, just strengthen the joints, and a few bits and bobs. The Stabilizer wheels' bore was too large for the drill, so I came up with an ingenious idea of taking an HDPE strip, drilling a hole for the drill motor, and two smaller for bolting the wheels on (Which is held by screws really. Might post some pics later, very tired now. Relaxing with the cat.
Uhm, just curious, how long, on average, do blue wheels from Robochallenge usually take to be made/arrive? They're not urgent, just wondering where they got to.
I'd send them an email or give them a call just to check everything is ok- around major event times they can take a very long time bit there isn't one at the moment so it seems odd it takes a couple of weeks.
They hate me saying this sooo much. Six months between my order with payment & a reminder. Half a year. So if you think yours is a bit late...
Be fair on them, though. They've got two jobs before the RC shop. Plus Robochallenge have a Gadget Show build atm but for legal reasons we don't know that
So, after doing not a whole lot due to having to deal with a close friend's death and funeral, I've finally picked myself up, and tried to get Tempest up and running. With zero success.
Luckily, my cheapo E-flite style Transmitter came, and works perfectly. Got Tempest out, tried to charge the SLA with no luck. The other apparently had 14v in it, and would charge for a little while. When I tried to use it, the Electronizes just clicked at me, and the power light flashed. I'm guessing it's the battery, not the Electronizes, but any idea what did them in? I'd assume not using them enough.
If that is the case, where can I get a good balance between cheap and reliable Ni-Mh or Ni-Cd. Sla's and Li-Po's just need more experience than me to be handled.
Well, I'm not dead, I've just had no money for the Robots atm, though I have been modding my Xbox. I do plan to make a beetleweight from my old Battlerat kit that was missing bits.
Okay, after a long break, trying out new things (E.G. Building computers, Making a business, thinking of doing a DofE on either that or robots) and so on. Anyway, I'm saving up to build a new antweight, or carry on with my feather Shazam!
So, if none of you mind, I've got pretty much the full status.
McCheapo:
On standby until I can get a nice rugged, but cheap look
Shazam!:
Nothing
Them Ants I tried to make:
Tried "hacking" old cheap servo, only stays on now.
So have you been having a crack at building a feather? Do you have any pictures? How far did you get and so on?
I got as far as the base chassis, before the jigsaw died. The other, McCheapo, is almost done, just needs a link, light, batteries and an ESC. Half of the robot looks like it's missing, mainly to see what I could build with the junk from the kitchen and shed. I wish't the Bang Bang speed controllers had worked, but the digital servos just pushed the switches off.
So, hopefully tomorrow, I'll have enough to get a cheap ESC, or more likely salvage one from the old RC Car.
Do you have any pictures it sounds really good :)
I don't have any at the moment, but it sounds better than it looks, unless I put it as "Two badly cut chopping boards stuck together with HDPE, drill motors bolted down with Pipe Clips* and with missing side panels." Just wanted to make a bot out of what I had spare.
*The rubber pipe holder things
Keep going! It sounds dead good!
So, unfortunately, McCheapo, I've realised, has to be scrapped for parts, and left as a testing mechanism. As of now, Shazam! is my main robot. It'll take a while to get it running, but I have an engineering college/school/something to get it going.
Right, I think I've got a design decent, fun type ant. It's a little larger than 4 inches, so not comptetitive, but something to get my skills up with. I'll likely be 3D Printing it, soonish.
Could it not go in the cube diagonally?
Well, with a couple modifications, it still doesn't look too impressive, but I have no better software than Sketchup. A box with a lifter shouldn't cost too much to 3D Print, right? Also, thanks to a little scaling magic, it does now fit in the 4 Inch cube. I hope. Either way, it'll just be there for fun, rather than something that would go to AWS or whatever. If it works, then I'll move on to a feather, and see if I can make one that can be competitive.
Image of the ant model here:
http://imgur.com/a/7A4vl
Good news! I may have finally found some team members, more than the limit, so I may need to weed out the less interested. It's seems to be going well so far.
Well, slightly better news, quite a few of my friends are interested in building robots, on my team. Which is kind of awkward, since last time I checked, it was 4 to a team? Or would 5 be okay with the competitions? I have had a quick scour through the rules, but nothing seems to be said on team size.