Clusterbot

At thinktank i will definately be bringing KAHN (which i could of posted in build pics of as it has no weakspots!):uhoh: and also Prodigy evo a fw spinner with a 3kg disk. dont think i will bring anymore than 2!

No weakspots eh?! Sounds like a challenge :proud:

Sounds like unsinkable, like they said about Titanic. :)

Jamie, have posted pics of kahn at http://www.freewebs.com/teamtronic/http://www.freewebs.com/teamtronic/

now you must tell me any weaknesses you see!LOL
use the links on the left, i havent finished building the site yet but some pics on their

Barts butt - thats the weakspot!! :proud:
(Ok so it could be one of the strongest points on your bot but itll give me something for target practice when it comes to aiming and closing the crushing arm - I was hopeless with it on the prototype!)

Otherwise, looks a solid construction with minimal weakspots :uhoh:
I guess Ill just have to keep my fingers crossed that one of the wires comes loose :)

Is it a welded box-section chassis with the HDPE bolted on to that? Hard to distinguish between the different parts of black

the sticker was my daugheters idea. i gave her some money when she went to town with my wife to buy something for the robot, i thought she would come back with a little tool box or something, but instead came back with some stickers and sweets? which reminds me where did my change go? lol,

yeah its welded box section on the sides and back, with 15mm hdpe. 6mm mild steel over the front scoop, with box section inserts for extra strength. 10mm hdpe lid, 3mm stainless chassis plate, decided to go with 9.6v motors instead of the 18v, and running these on 2x 8.4v 3700 mah nimh packs, its seems a fast little thing, and wont need charging inbetween fights which is good as it will leave me more time to concentrate on mine.:proud:

i have learnt my lessons on loose wires and hopefully that will be ok now.im a bit concerned about the ground clearance so hoping its a nice flat floor at events, as this thing quite literally skims the floor and being 2wd i can see it beaching itself if not careful. the only thing she needs now is some whiteboards to learn to drive and fight, and to get her away from the habit of driving near the pit when its open!

same batteries as in psycho fling, difference being i use 3 of them powering 18volt motors

Im thinking of building a simple clusterbot............just incase axeadent isnt ready for thinktank.................:uhoh:

cutting some polycarb for the cluster bot over the weekend, i have different thicknesses to cut between 5mm-10mm, i know you need to keep the speed down to stop it melting, what blade should i use in my jigsaw? does it matter? i have metal and wood cutting blades.

Wood. Metal blades are far to fine.

Wooden blades on a medium speed setting and the jigsaw goes through polycarb like butter.

can anyone give me advice about making a shell from kevlar or carbon fibre, i know nothing about it except i think you use it in the same way as standard fiberglass. for my clusterbot, i have made a shell out of ply to get the shape i want. (which i couldnt do with metal lol) i would like to strengthen the bottom of the shell all around the robot with thick ali or something. Im not sure if this is going to give good armour amongst todays machines but i know mortis used something similar.

The main differences are when you are trying to cut the stuff. You need sharp scissors to cut kevlar and sanding both materials is a bit of a nightmare. Kevlar fluffs up and carbon produces nasty fibres.
In terms of layup you can treat them almost identically to glassfibre but you should try even harder to get a good layup to make the most of the extra material costs. Using peel ply is relatively cheap and easy and would help with getting good consolidation, save resin and gives a nice surface finish. Vacuum bagging would help even more if you can be bothered.
One tip Ive learnt with using Kevlar, if youre not after ultimate strength or stiffness and just want the part to hold together after sustaining some damage, layup the kevlar in the middle of the ply stack but make sure it stays relatively dry. That way the fibres wont break after an impact and will loosely hold it all together.

This tutorial seems pretty good for general composites work:
http://rv8a.tripod.com/fiberglass.htmlhttp://rv8a.tripod.com/fiberglass.html
& for the higher tech stuff:
http://www.netcomposites.com/education.asp?sequence=81http://www.netcomposites.com/education.asp?sequence=81
good luck!

not sure either material is good to use for armour. its expencive, time consuming and needs to be repaired properly after inevitable damage to look good. if its the carbon look your after why not make it out of steel or ali and then get the sticky back genuine carbon fibre cloth to put over it.

cheers mark, will have a look at that, see if it is something i could have a go at, i would like to definatley give it a try as its different.
thanks james, perhaps you can make it for me out of ali if needed, as i cant weld ali and steel is too heavy,i have a wooden mock up to work from, but i just dont know if the shape can be made easily from ali. its coming together nicely now and i really want to get it finished. will post some pics shortly.

just got a question, would a 12v nimh 3700mah be sufficent to run 2 x 9.6v drills with a sabertooth, for the duration of a fight?

I believe it would easily last two or three fights - Drumroll was in a total of six (or seven) fights at the Eurochamps running 2 x 9.6V drills at 12V with 4500mAh capacity SLA batteries and didnt need charged once, didnt even appear to lose any speed, although it was not doing excessive amounts of pushing.

But yeah you should be fine with them Adrian. Any pics of the happy clusterbot couple yet? :)

we use 3000mA 7.2v batteries in our kits they can run for atleast an hour without a charge, they will probably last you a whole event in some cases.

great cheers, and also are their any machines around that can pierce 12mm hdpe? im guessing Drawgons claw, but wasnt sure about little hitter. will post some pics later this week, by about thursday when its all painted up.

(Message edited by ady on January 28, 2008)

Little hitter never got through our HPDE armour, not the 5 mm let alone the 10 mm. It does leave its mark though. Crushers like Dragons claw go through it like a hot knife through butter.

Only need to worry about Crushers. :)

my new robot still in the making is a crusher:mrgreen:

cheers guys, I will still keep my distance from little hitter if thats ok mark!! does surprise me though, as it always looks deadly. i have just painted the cluster, left it to dry overnight, then just need to fit all the gubbins (should have the sabertooths tomorrow) and post some pics.