Spinner Energy

Our tool sponsor - Teng Tools are supplying us with an laser tachometer - simply stick a white spot at the object, spin it up, and point the tachometer at it.

Were planning to bring it along to some events with us this year to give people the opportunity to measure just what their spinner does.

I think people will be surprised just how much energy (and rpm) is lost due to wind resistance alone - espcially bar spinners !

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

Agreed- simple laser tachos can be found most places- stick on a nice refective spot (as ed said) but you need the rest of it to be non reflective, cos nice shiny stainles discs will confuse the thing into reading 10000000rpm. As for wind loss, and other frictional loses, it should be possible to put an exact figure on that, then you can calculate how much energy is being disipated, and so how much work your motor is doing. Obviosly more friction an wind resistence results in more current being used by the motor, which is not good for anyone. Aerofoil spinner bars anyone?

Eds spot on - I can confirm that windage between discs and brg structure of a jet engine consumes many KWs of power! (I design em at work). His laser tacho :) is just what organisers need in their Tech Check box (along with Scales, Tape Measure, Calcuulator and Charts (who thought this was going to be easy :sad:)

BE VERY CAREFUL about standing by discs and checking their speed at an event (classic situation for injury) - but it would be really usefull if we could set up controlled conditions to plot theoretical disc speed (ie, motor free revs x ratio) against measured disc speeds - and create a rule for correction factor(s) based on an assessment of windage.

Then we measure motor revs (while the disc is off for weighing) and can more acurately asses your potential disc speed :)
Kev.

well im all for trying new things with the arena, before / after events, tests can be carried out in the arena with discs, with no audience around to help further this little project.

Jonno

Featherweight spinners are being carfully monitored at rr events by myself, each one, both construction and design is looked at... its in hand dont worry about that.


Jonno

Surely the only way were going to get a simple and fair answer is by measuring the actual speed of the disc itself at events and use a set of figures matchibg weights againest rim speed.

Any attempt to provide theoretical figures based on motor specs, operating voltages etc is likely to be seriously flawed due to losses in the system or maybe even misquoted gear ratios.

A decent optical tacho isnt that expensive and it isnt exactly rocket science to produce a safe enclosure to spin up discs in for testing.

Regards

Tim Jones

You can buy a tacho intended for measuring the speed of model plane props for 25 - 30 pounds. Works well for me. I position it near the disc and stand well back - binos to read it might be a good safety measure.

Yes John thats what Ive used to measure our disc speed

A simple optical tacho (I used it for my model aircraft) ..you just stick a white stripe down your disc (or any contrasting colour)....it is VERY accurate ..I measured the rpm of of my bench circular saw by painting a line of tippex on it and it was spot on the makers rpm.

You do have to be pretty close though ( 6 inches or so)and though I felt safe measuring Chips rpm at home, I dont know safety wise whether it would be advisable at an event.

Eds laser system seems like it might be quite safe as it seems it may have a longer range (what is the max range of the laser pointer Ed?)

But as mentioned they are very accurate.

Tom

Ive Never used a laser tacho before, but I would assume that it has a LCD screen displaying rpm. This should be easily removable, and cables extended meaning range is no longer an issue.

Strap robot in a cradle
Mount tacho on floor beside
(LCD outside Arena/Test area)
Crank up the Juice + Measure RPM
Roger.

Tim Jones states Any attempt to provide theoretical figures based on motor specs, operating voltages etc is likely to be seriously flawed due to losses in the system or maybe even misquoted gear ratios

Fully agree, but some people are so good at engineering that their losses are much less than others - so we are currently assuming there is No Loss of rpm, which is unfair to the less sophisticated builder. It may come to nothing, but the experiment might help us - to help others.
Kev

Providing any figure arrived at is achievable by a good engineer, it should not be a problem. There should be no issue with a system that rewards good, efficient and safe engineering.

My thought was more along the lines of the inevitable % loss that everyone suffers in their drivetrain. I have no idea how to quantify this, but am very aware that in our case the calculation of theoretical figures is usually tragically inaccurate ;(

Losses due to our standard of engineering are our own problem and no-one elses. Subject to common sense safety concerns of course.

Regards

Tim Jones

Hi Tim,
I have been working with Kev on this, and at our last discussion at the FRA meeting, we discussed a method of determining the max rpm of the system. It was suggested that, as it would be dangerous to get close to a spinning disc to measure it, the output shaft attaching to the disc should be tachod for the rpm. not only will this eliminate the need to work out gear ratios etc, it has the side effect to factoring in losses and inefficiencies as we are getting output rpm not input power.

The things kev and I are investigating are to allow spinners to run, and although its unlikely the final solution will be 100% acurate for every spinner, it means they can come and play, so if we are talking about 5 or 10% inaccuracy, thats better than staying at home. As the live circuit gains experience in running spinner, Im sure further developments can be made to get closer to exact figures.

Hope this helps.
James

OK - I am going to have my say now.
Firstly - There has been a lot of rubbish written above - I wish some people would check their physics books before describing facts.

As we have a spinner, we want to use it and use it in a safe way that is reasonably competitive. Therefore I endorse the concept of trying to arrive at a workable ruling - but have seen little to encourage me yet. Let me explain.

1)Simple estimations of MOI dont work in many cases. Forget mass and guessing where most of it is - just use a rotating pendulum and measure the thing directly. I have had several communications with Paul Hill about his site - some of his equations are wrong (still) but he insists in trying to derive them from first principles. OK thats fine for him, but if he gets it wrong.....

2)Measuring rotational speed - this is easy - yes you can use a tacho - but I for one will not stand next to 13B at full disk speed - it needs to be remote - either a laser or on a very long stick with remote read out. This we have done before. Question - since it takes several minutes to achieve maximum speed (which you never do in the arena) just when will you take the reading? After 1 sec, 10 sec, 30 sec, 60 sec? All will give different readings.

3)Blade design - This is a fun one. Imagine an infinitely smooth drum as a weapon. OK you might not want to put your hand on it at high speed, but it is hardly a threat to an arena. Compare that with a triangular section hardened steel point for maximum crack inducement - as we have on 13B - a little more dangerous perhaps even if the disk has the same energy.

4)What is acceptable? I saw Kevins fancy curve plots on Sat - but how on earth has that any relation to Jonnos arena? Or anyone elses?

The crucial question in my mind is :
How much energy will this disk impart to this arena wall in a likely (or a worst case) impact, and can the arena withstand this impact without any ejection of material outside the arena?

Disk speed, MOI, blade shape, blade material, blade stiffness, arena shape, arena stiffness and arena material, potential angles of attack etc ALL NEED TO BE TAKEN INTO ACCOUNT.

Some empirical data can be obtained by testing. I strongly suggest we do this so that we all can learn real numbers and make sensible decisions.

Rant over!

Richard
13 Black

as i said, im willing to make the arena available for testing purposes before an event.

Jonno

Richard, as an experienced roboteer it is clear you know what you are talking about, but it is almost impossible to implement a system based on your rant. Kev and I are not inexperienced know nothings, and have spoken about everything you mentioned, but it is impractical to factor in everything or we would be there most of the morning deciding if a spinner can run.

This is not an attack on you, as personally Ive a great deal of respect toward you, but we must make assumptions or we wont be able to run anything, as I said earlier, the system can evolve once in place.

In responce to your points,

1) we MUST simplify the design and obtain an approx MOI, or we will be there all day.

2) By measureing the shaft speed, we iliminate most of the problem you mentions, as we are in effect measuring the unloaded speed plus friction.

3) we are not bringing tooth design in as this is a point of contention with many people sure their differing solutions ore more efficient. It also depends on what materials we are hitting and the weight of them. In practice, best assume the teeth are 100% efficient and impart the full energy without loss.

4)we dont know.... until testing is done, we have no way of knowing what energy levels apply to what arenas, I have personally run a 5kJ spinner in my arena, but the opinion on that is divied, and I think that is going to be a major problem we will face as diffenet groups argue what they can run.

Until a basic system is in place, we cant really obtain the amount of data wed like, you can only do so much controller testing, the real figures come out in real fights.

If you have any suggestions I would be very keen to hear them, as I this is not an easy task, for me anyway.

Cheers
James

Beening serious for a moment you boffins with spinners will know if this will work. Its just an idea but as it seems that a method for limiting spinners is undecided I thought Id mention it. If you attached a G-Force meter on or near to the blade of the disc and span it very slowly (a known rpm) and hit a solid object that stopped the disc could you calculate the energy of the impact? If so you could then recalculate this for the top speed of the disc. A simple Accelerometer (Spelling) such as those used in Car Airbag systems could be used and are relativly cheap.

possible I suppose, but youre not using mine :)

This is the next thing we need to look at I think. We know what energy is in a disc, thats the easy bit, its how it imparts that energy to the other person that causes the headaches.

Well get there, but it wont be a simple solution I dont think.

also an important fact that i feel hasnt been brought up is the amount of traction the robot has. If you have 6 wheel drive, 200mm wide sticky wheels you will put more energy into the a hit as a 2 wheel drive robot with 25mm wide hard wheels . if both robots had exactly the same disc etc etc.

true, we saw this with Tantrum, with just 2 hard wheels he did spin away from the hits, which a 6 wheeler would be less likely to do.

There are other things that effect the potency of hits too, but I wont go into the one I mean or everyone will build one! :)

WRT Richards comments (an a few others) - we have to start by assuming worst case :-
1. You can impart Total KE into the oposition
2. Disc can achieve Max Possible rpm from your motor, voltage and gearing.

Of course very few will get anything this good - but there are some damn fine engineers out there who will (are) getting close.

Now - this pendulum thing. I rather like that.

If we get people to remove their disc - measure the shaft speed, and swing the disc to work out its inertia - then I think we could do a very similar set of curves showing the allowables.

I was going to work up those mass*dia^2 lines - but recognise that relies on the selection process to decide which chart to apply.

If we built a pendulum rig and callibrate it - then well only need ONE chart. Can anybody share the formulae with me (wasnt it posted here a while back ?)

Would really like to take this concept further - but finding the time is tough :sad: :)
Kev.

i dont think the traction of the robot has much of a major factor. worst case would be the disc at full speed, being pushed into the arena wall (disc first) by someone like storm.

Id have said a spinner being launched into the safety screen disc first.... but then I always was the destructive kind.

I think the point of the traction thing is....
Imagaine hypno on ice (possibly a show there?) its never going to put all the energy in as it skids away.
now nail it (prit stick, blu-tak, whatever) to the floor so it cannot move no matter what, the hits are bigger, so more energy transfer.

the more grip you have, the more energy you can transfer before you are moved away by the impact. the ultimate demonstration of this is vertical spinners that cannot move trough the floor, look what they do!

Are we any nearer verticals being allowed to fight at private events yet ?

In the mean-time, dont know if anybody has seen this site but it might be useful.

http://www.teamcosmos.com/ke/ke.shtmlhttp://www.teamcosmos.com/ke/ke.shtml

Paul S.

yike!
thanks Paul, now THAT is a big help!
you seen this Kev?

cheers
James

yeah thats great well done paul
great link

Watch the greatest hits vids, some really nice fight sequences. Great link Paul.

great link, now our team know how mush power will be in our disc, its helped us out a lot. Thanks

______________
Carl
http://www.freewebs.com/carls-robot-pagewww.freewebs.com/carls-robot-page

So this is an old thread which I'm digging up in the aftermath of the recent new series. I've a few questions about vertical spinners which I'm hoping 9 years of experience can answer.
1. Are they legal or not? I'm getting mixed messages across the forum, the "rules" and what I've seen on the show. I appreciate the arena operator has the last say but the TV series was PACKED with spinners which seemed to violate 2 if not 3 of the rules applying to spinners.
2. This energy calculator on the teamchaos site- do they have a version in metric, or at least specifying what units are being used? Has this calculator been proved to work, what margin of error have people observed?
3. Earlier in this thread Richard from 13B appeared to basically justify why spinners should not appear at all...which is concerning. I want one. He predicted the possibility for a spinner to damage the arena and or send shrapnel at polycarbonate piercing speeds. At least one of these came true during the recent series, (see how I avoided the spoiler there), on this note, are they being considered for banning/regulating further to the '3 Rules'?
4. If I went with a 700mm disk diameter saw...that allowed or not? If not technically storing kinetic forces for impact purposes, but instead a glorified circular saw blade...still counts as a spinner, or a saw? Loophole?
5. Anything else anyone can give in terms of advice. Disk-edge mph optimums, material choices (hardox for everything?), motor protection tips etc.

1) Spinner Rules are in context of the arena they are run in. Grade 2 and above has no stated limit, other than what the EO sets. Grade 3 is 500rpm, or what the EO sets - best advice is to read the rules carefully and in detail, and learn how they apply to different EOs and events.

2) Its always best to double check your figures from a unrelated source if unsure on the calculation. However that sites confused me aswell as it appears to be american, and thus imperial - yet gives the answer in metric. This is why you shouldnt use imperial for anything scientific :P

3) No, tip speed may be limited by EOs (EO has final discretion and may vary between). However youll likely still get over 200mph before they start getting cautious.

4) There is no difference between blade type, if it rotates its a spinner. Some robots have bars, beaters, ect - they arnt discs but come under the same regulations. Best advice is to not try finding loopholes in the regulations as the EOs will likely see through that and ban it anyway. If your defence is that its in the wording of the rules, tough - they decide if you enter their arena or not.

5) Build it at featherweight scale first. That way you can learn the technology and structural requirements needed whilst also not breaking the bank

The team cosmos calculator gives accurate figures but they are only as accurate as the info you provide. It's obviously very simple so can't help you with complex curves etc. The most accurate method is to model the spinning mass in CAD and get your moment of inertia from there. Use that with the formula and you will have a bang on answer (assuming you ever reach the rpm you assume).

Gary is right but if you are in a hurry and want an approximation, this site helpful: http://www.botlanta.org/converters/d.../flywheel.html