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looking nice but very tight on space. whats the over all dimensions? im also interested to see what you will do with the wheels to protect them once its finished. lol i know you feel like giving up but just think- no self-righting hoops:)
how heavy is it so far ?
and thanks gary for the link ill get some of that
DERUBOLL IS LOOGNKI GOD WARGHG
GO PENGUNIS
Well a night's sleep works wonders for the perspective; I'm not quite so annoyed with it now and reckon I can cope with the challenge of getting it fitted/wired up in such a small space :)
And yes Calum, remembering that I wouldn't need self-righting hoops helped :P
Current weight as it is in the picture is 4.6kg; when I add the drum and shaft onto that it takes it up to 9.1kg - then add another 500g for a battery pack gives me 4kg free for armour! :twisted:
More when the brushless is fitted
Wheel protection will either consist of some 12mm polypro, or 12mm HDPE, or possibly some bent steel/welded ti. Other option is to look at Hornet, which has been running five events without wheel protection and has never lost a wheel. Kaizer's wheels were exposed though for a couple of battles at the UK champs and took some damage but still not enough to rip them off the drill shafts. But they'll be one of the last things I'll consider.
Kody, go on, have another :rofl:
Make that 6 events for hornet so far! :P
Having your wheels exposed with a spinner is quite a good idea as people always focus on them and never think to worry about the big spinning mass in the front :)
You'll be gaining more weight if you go to A123s too mind! Might as well just make it into a hardox box with the spare weight.
I've been considering swapping the poly for hardox actually since the spare weight is there for it. I'll wait and see what the weight of it is all in when its completed; this chassis will probably run at the tag champs though and then I'll look at possibly making it hardox
Eurochamps 2007
Tag champs 2007
UK Champs 2008
Rebel Robots 2009
UK Champs 2009
I still make it five events :lol:
When else has Hornet been out to play?
(yes I sadly have a memory that seems to subconciously note unnecessary robot stats such as this)
meh there was another one in there somewhere. Every battery pack thats gone in the robot so far has lasted the grand sum of 2 events, throw 3 batteries in, you get 6 events :P
Either way my wallet and bank balance have felt the number heavily. I doubt there is another feather out there that has actually required a full rebuild to the same degree after each event :uhoh:
Hehe fair enough :)
Yeah like you said one time, you should really be on Hornet 6 or Hornet 7 by now :lol:
Probably the machine that's had the most TLC in the featherweights!
Update
Nothing major, but will be swapping the polypro that I'm using for the base panel right now for some aluminium, since its easier to bend and mount at the points where the chassis blukhead slopes. I searched on eBay for some ali and the very first item that came up was the perfect width and only requires 20mm trimmed off the length :)
If I'm not wrist deep and sweating trying to fix hornet its usually been retired from the event :P
Gotta love ebay! :)
Well this build thread has been stupidly quiet for a while. Sadly not got any robot build progress to report but I was bored today and trawled through a bunch of old robot pictures and footage on my computer. Came across this from four years ago; ah the good old days of windscreen wiper motors, SLAs and microswitches :)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8nNw1HP06FQ
Exams finish next Tuesday so after that I'll be able to get back to robot work and start preparing everything for the tag champs. Drumroll II is on hold construction-wise at the moment due to me not being happy with the chassis construction and design, so the original Drumroll will be in action again. To-do list includes; making a new cross-bulkhead to replace the cracked one, soldering up some new battery packs out of existing pile of Nimh cells, fitting the brushless motor and controller, painting the drum and (all being well weight-wise) incorporating a srimech arm in a bid to get rid of the ghastly roll-hoops.
Then there's Incisor to build from scratch (CAD started today) and a power tool drag racer to make and pimp, as well as sorting out all the stuff for camping. And by the time I get back home, I'll have a grand total of two weeks - eeep!!!
I'm looking forward to seeing how I get on with this actually. I was planning on having nice new A123s in Drumroll and a well-constructed Incisor etc but the Subway shop I was working in has recently shut down therefore my plan of working lots of extra shifts to raise bot capital has fallen flat on its face. Factoring in camping supply costs and fuel, its not possible to get A123s, appropriate charging gear and loads of bits I don't really need. So modifications to Drumroll and construction of Incisor will involve a fair bit of old-school style 'make do with what's at hand/what can be salvaged from other people's trash'. It'll involve a bit of bodging which means some materials and parts won't be top notch but I'm really quite looking forward to seeing what I can do by returning to the 'use stuff I've already got' approach rather than the 'new stuff bought off internet' process that I've been using for the past two years.
I think I'm starting to slip into 3.30am waddling mode so I'll retreat to bed now
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YSSrLTkT ... re=related
very nice :)
Update
What a waste of a day :(
Was working on Carcinus today, trying to make progress getting it complete as its quite far off. Spent the whole day making the claw mechanism which consists of a drill motor coupled to a threaded rod from a scissor jack. This then runs through the threaded nut and scissor arms from the jack to push the claws back and forward. So lots of drilling, tapping and trying to figure out how best to mount one thing to another.
End of the day, got it all finished and tested it only to discover that the travel is not sufficient and the claws would either not close far enough or they wouldn't be capable of opening very wide. Plus, due to a little bit of a miscalculation on my behalf there was no way of extending the travel. So now the whole mechanism is useless and has been removed from the robot. Normally wouldn't too fussed about a wasted day, but not four days before leaving for an event *sigh*
On a more positive note, I was able to get Drumroll all finished off yesterday. Its currently running with a brushless motor and controller powering the drum:
http://i31.photobucket.com/albums/c3...r_build206.jpg
Its had a spin-up test on one battery pack so far and that was promising so fingers crossed it works well. The second battery pack for Drumroll has still to be built (waiting on a 100W soldering iron from eBay to arrive - ordered it last Monday, hoped it would be here by now but no :evil: Keeping hopes up for Wednesday at the latest, otherwise I could be in trouble) so once that's done I can calibrate everything and hopefully get a test run down at the industrial estate to source any problems.
Along with the new weapon setup, there are new drill motors coupled to the gearboxes and new treads on the tyres. The motors/gearboxes are the same type that were in Kaizer Mk3 and see a revolution increase from 550rpm to roughly 1000rpm. This should ideally see Drumroll be a bit more nippy in the arena. The old bike tread had worn down quite a bit so its been replaced with some nice new grippy stuff. This does mean however, that the rear ground clearance is 20mm :shock:
Flippers stay away!
http://i31.photobucket.com/albums/c3...r_build207.jpg
Roll hoops are back *shudder* as I didn't have the weight/space/time to fit a self-righting mechanism. They failed against Aftershock and despite a little bit of reinforcing, they're still susceptible to not working properly, but they'll have to do and are better than nothing. This will probably be the last outing for this version of Drumroll as I hope to get to work on the new version at the beginning of the new year. This one will still remain as back-up though if I don't get it completed in time.
So that's that for now, will hopefully have some Carcinus pics tomorrow when its more photogenic. Gonna just bung in a commercial actuator for now (Linak LA-22) which sticks out at the back...a lot!! It also makes the robot look even more similar to Kan-Opener; its quite similar already. Could always turn it into a FW replica :lol:
I swear I'm not trying to make it look like Kan-Opener :lol:
[attachment=0:2fyfakk3]DSCN4463.JPG[/attachment:2fyfakk3]
i can't believe you've stolen kan opener and stripped its paint off :)
but seriously drumroll is looking awesome, film the video of you chewing stuff up and post it on here, wana see how it does:)
Yeah, tear some junk up, let's see parts fly. ;)
Update
Brushless test was below par - spun up rather well to begin with and drove quite nicely but running the two together during the test was too much for the batteries. Thankfully they're still intact, didn't blow any cells this time (hurrah!) but its clear that the brushless is pulling too much power out of the batteries to last any length of time. I think this is an upgrade that will have to wait until it can be accompanied with lithium batteries.
So in the meantime, the Speed 900 will be getting put back in as it's tried and tested and gives a longer run time. Off to sharpen the drum teeth now then start work on the Carcinus claws.
stick a lipo in drumroll then it will be able to provide the power for both going
Yeah lipos are on the cards, but it needs to wait till I can afford both the battery packs and associated charging equipment. The Speed 900 will do till then :)
Thank you muchly Kane :)
Looking good mate.
Seems like this might be the last event for a good few machines.
Update
A brief report of the event last weekend.
Drumroll and Hornet 2 were paired up in the tag team championships. We got through the first two battles against Tiny Toon (on its own, The Toonimator wasn't running in time) and Surprise/Killer Bee. We didn't come away without problems though. Drumroll had power problems in the first fight and kept cutting out. Couldn't fully locate the source of the problem but it was attributed to a loose connection somewhere in one of the battery packs, so it got pulled apart and fully resoldered. Second fight, the drum stopped (simply the ESC wire unplugging itself from the failsafe) and Hornet 2's disc gave up the ghost after causing a bit of damage to Surprise and immobilising Killer Bee.
In the third round 3-way melee against Beauty 2/Rip Evo and Aftershock/Heatwave, Drumroll was working okay but Hornet was sporting a very lethal cordless drill weapon in place of its disc setup (from which the Mag burnt out). Unfortunately after helping to partly immobilise Beauty 2/Rip Evo, Hornet became stuck on the side wall and Aftershock flipped Drumroll over and into the pit when I came to try and knock Hornet 2 down.
The loser's melee was made up of us, Beauty 2/Rip Evo, LH2/LS2 and Alpha/Tiny Toon. Hornet only had drive on one side and Drumroll soon got flipped over by Beauty 2 and promptly got stuck on those ghastly roll-hoops.
So we crashed out of the competition at that point.
Carcinus was teamed up with Relentless and they only had Whirlpool to contend with in their first fight because Crumple Zone had battery problems. But Whirlpool managed to come out victorious as Relentless broke down and Carcinus drove into the pit! (even though Whirlpool was teetering on the edge; my dad needs some driving practice! :lol:)
Can't actually remember who were the second fight opponents - old age eh? :blush:
But whoever they were, they were the winning team and Carcinus and Relentless failed to progress to the next round.
We managed to get Carcinus in a good few whiteboards over the weekend. This let us see that the claws weren't strong enough with just aluminium brackets holding it all together so I'll need to track down a welder to get them welded up nice and strong. In more positive news, the drive is nice and nippy and the bike tyre armour worked well against spinners (although it only came up against Drumroll, but survived well)
A Spektrum is on the agenda though as this is the first time one of my 'invertible' bots has actually worked well upside down and having an aerial taped to the chassis doesn't provide a strong enough reception so in order to get better radio signal and still run upside down, 2.4GHz it will be.
Drumroll ran its Speed 900 motor on the Saturday but for some reason it just wasn't as effective as it was in March. The batteries were the same, the ratio was the same but it just seemed to stop a lot more when hitting an opponent. Going back to the UK champs in Newcastle, the main thing about the drum was that despite what it hit, it never seemed to want to stop. Always going on and on regardless, so I was quite disappointed. Sunday was taken up mostly by the drag racing so for whatever whiteboards there would be I just threw the brushless motor back in. Despite the batteries not lasting long with it, there is enough charge to do a 3-minute battle. And the performance was much improved! Did a bit of damage to Little Spinner's front armour, knocked a section of the arena sidewall up and got it jammed after piggy-backing on Tiny Toon, managed to make some gouges in TTs armour, and mangled the front wedge of Crumple Zone a bit (sorry again Alex!)
In short the brushless worked really well and resulted in some gyroscopic moves when running at full-tilt, although compared to 360's they weren't anywhere near as spectacular :)
The kilt-wearing, haggis-bearing, drag-racing belt sander ran perfectly fine but was about half the speed of all the other belt sanders there and so didn't claim a podium place but it still looks good. I might get a better, faster sander for next year and keep the current one for sanding jobs around the house.
Future developments
I'm pretty happy with its first performance in the sense that everything worked! Once we get the jaws welded up, a Spektrum fitted and a nice paint-job done it should be running nicely. An upgraded actuator system to provide more speed and grip is an option but for now the current Linac actuator will do.
Drumroll (the current version) is done for competitions I think. It needs a self-righter but with as much material removed as possible its still only 100g underweight. So I plan to ditch the self-righting hoops, put the Speed 900 back in and run it as a whiteboard machine/back-up to Drumroll II and if it gets flipped it gets flipped. Drumroll II started taking shape in the form of a polypro chassis back in June but I'm not happy with the looks, design, size etc so its going back to the drawing board. In order to step up a level, the plans are thus: welded titanium chassis to provide a strong platform from which to fight, one that will stand up to the impacts given out as well as received; brushless motor powered drum, perhaps a new one that is shorter in length to keep things compact but losing none of its deadliness; lithiums, either in the form of A123s or lipo's as they will be needed to meet the demands of the brushless and allow it to perform; and most importantly it will be able to run both ways up and be a lot more agile, allowing for quick attacking moves and more elaborate gyro dancing :)
A Sabretooth may be purchased for the drive motors if funds allow.
Until then, its back to uni, back to the CAD software and onwards and upwards for the team and its robots 8)
Five months since my last update, maaaan that's too long :P
What developments have there been?
Well, looking back at my last post I said Carcinus was in need of getting its claws welded, a 2.4GHz unit installed and a bit of a paint job. It's had all of those things and had its second outing at Roaming Robots Barnsley two weeks ago. With exception of the radio not connecting in one fight and then driving into the pit numerous other times, it worked rather well. There is very little gripping power in the claws though so I am now looking at making a couple of attachments to fit over the claw tips with pads of bicycle tyre attached so that there is more friction between claws and opponent, hopefully allowing us to drag and push them around.
I also said in my last post that I reckoned Drumroll was done for competitions; well it definetly is now. Blew up a battery pack at Barnsley from over-charging (stoopid chargers :? ) and that, coupled with the purchase of a Scorpion XL has given me fresh motivation to get cracking with Drumroll II. I've got most of the chassis design and part-fitting done in CAD, have finally settled on an outer armour shape/design and just need to work out how to CAD it (it involves angled bits of metal and I've never really drawn them before). I was going to post a picture tonight but realised I could save some space and weight by changing the orientation of the batteries so will do that and post it later without the complex armour bits, they'll just get super-imposed in Paint :)
So what of Drumroll? I'm going to put both Speed 900s back in it, buy a replacement Nimh pack and save it for whiteboards. No self-righting hoops or srimech, did well enough without them at Barnsley. There are no full combat events lined up until September that I am aware of so that should be enough time to get the new machine running. Most of the cost for that will be in making the new drum and getting A123s/associated charging equipment so that'll wait till late summer when I'll hopefully have a job and some money. While I'm waiting on that I can get most of the chassis constructed and parts installed.
And finally, what drumbot owner's life would be complete without a greatest hits video of the year? :)
Finally found a decent file converter for my camcorder files so have been able to get some video editing in:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aaQXz9okOHM
Watched the video earlier. Definitely the best performing robot from last years UK Champs. I cant wait to see Drumroll II vs Savage HD.
Might have to do a bodge job on savage evo and try get it working, Have one last fight with it, Savage Evo vs Drumroll. But if Evo becomes immobilized you will have to finish it off properly, Like they would do in the old robot wars days, Smash it until theres nothing left.
You up for that?
:rofl: at the ending :P
Drumroll reminds me of Rampage 2... Same colour, nearly same shape :shock:
I'd be up for that on one condition; it works both ways. So if Drumroll becomes immobilised first, you go at it until its in bits and pieces. Sound okay? :)Quote:
Might have to do a bodge job on savage evo and try get it working, Have one last fight with it, Savage Evo vs Drumroll. But if Evo becomes immobilized you will have to finish it off properly, Like they would do in the old robot wars days, Smash it until theres nothing left.
You up for that?
Sounds good. Hope they dont just hit eachother and just epic fail again.
Yeah that would be a bit of a bugger. Think I'll cable-tie every connector together to make sure nothing can come undone, superglue wheels on etc and generally just gaffa tape everything.
How does the end of this year's UK champs sound for a date of destruction? :)
Yup. Ill get the whole uk champs weekend to say goodby to evo then.
If its evo that gets smashed it will look cool cos its all hdpe bolted together with small bits of aluminium angle so it will rip up nice and easy.
i may have to join this if its okay :P krazy train, my first fw, is taking up space, and what better way to get rid of a wooden wedge then to stick it in with two spinners :D? ,ay have to soak it it gasoline....:P
OMG, drumroll is going to retire ?! :o :shock: :!: :?:
yeh but Jamie is making a new version that should be better (no pressure Jamie :talker: )
Pressure? I laugh in the face of pressure mwuh ha ha ha :twisted:
Nah, the new one should be much better. The current one can't run upside down, is quite slow and poor to drive. Because the drum weighs so much and there's nothing particularly heavy behind the wheels, the motors struggle to drive it as well as it should (if I take the outer shell and drum off the thing zooms all over the place)
But don't worry Mart, Drumroll isn't getting retired. Just...err...downgraded :)
Even if it gets smashed up by Savage Evo, it'll get repaired. Depending on the severity of the damage it might take a while but it will get repaired :)
Might get a CAD of Mk.2 up later today. It's a hangover Sunday so chances of doing work are slim. Just need to get a McDonalds, or maybe a steak and cheese Sub, and a coke and I'll be sorted, mmmm
Well in the end it was a Chicken and Bacon Ranch sub I had, helped the recovery process a bit :)
Couple of CADs of the new Drumroll II design. Nothing fancy to be honest, the main aim being to get all the components and as much power into as small a space as possible, thereby allowing for thicker armour.
Stats:
2 x 12V cordless drill motors for drive
6 x A123 cells giving a nominal 19.8V
Scorpion XL speed controller
2kw 1650kv brushless 'Align' motor powering the drum
75A 'Align' brushless speed controller
Basic design:
http://i31.photobucket.com/albums/c3...d/new_cad4.jpg
12mm thick Nylon chassis drilled, tapped and bolted together. The drum is shorter in length with only two teeth so will weigh a little less but should be less taxing on the brushless setup.
There will be armour, most probably hardox 4mm minimum, going around the wheels and a hinged wedge at the back. Not very good at drawing that sort of stuff in CAD though so I've given a CAD the Paint treatment. Just need to use your imagination a little :)
http://i31.photobucket.com/albums/c3...w_cad3edit.jpg
Haven't drawn in the Scorpion or brushless controller, don't tend to go that detailed. As long as I know there is space for them I'm happy. A quick size comparison with the current machine:
http://i31.photobucket.com/albums/c3...ld_new_iso.jpg
and again from the top. This one really shows the difference in size but its thanks to having a Scorpion XL, A123s and a shorter drum that I can downsize it so much:
http://i31.photobucket.com/albums/c3...ld_new_top.jpg
So that's the plan, hoping to make a tentative start on it in June funds depending. The Nylon sheet to just get the chassis made costs £51 alone so I need to get my finger out and get a job! :)
Very nice Jamie :proud: :proud: :proud:
What is the thickness of armour on top? material?
also how tall
looking really good what CAD progamme do you use?
o yeh stop spending money on them expensive subways and save some money man if you don't buy any subway for a month you could easily afford the nylon :mrgreen:
Jamie, can i get cad of your old drumroll? :proud:
Not decided on top armour yet. If there's weight I might go for hardox, otherwise it'll be aluminium or polycarb. Thickness will probably be 4mm if hardox, 5mm if ali or 6mm if polycarb.
Chassis height is 85mm, wheels are 120mm and the skids at the front are 130mm.
Cad program is Solid Edge, used by our uni as they could sell it to students for £5 a licence. They've now installed Solidworks on all the uni PCs which is more the industry standard. I really need to learn Solidworks, it's not too different from Solid Edge but because I know how to use Solid Edge I keep on opening that up rather than trying to learn SW.
And I only buy a Sub or two a month when I can't be bothered to cook :P
Mart, yeah I'll send you a copy of the old cad. What cad program do you use, or is there any particular file format that would work best for you? Maybe tomorrow before I send it as there are a couple of bits on it that could do with being updated :)
Jamie, why are you making it invertible when you've just perfected your special self-righting mechanism? :lol:
Jamie good sir, If i were you I would push the wheels back and that way u wont be able to be stacked on ur bum
Haha Dave, yeah maybe I shouldn't worry about invertibility, no chance it's ever going to land upside down! :proud:
Craig, that's a good point. I'll have a hinged wedge on the back but I didn't think about it getting stuck upright and the robot landing on its back. I don't want to move the wheels any further back than they currently are as turning will put more strain on the motors, but I'll put a couple of blocks on the back that stop the wedge from rising up more than, say, 15 degrees; that way if its lifted/flipped the robot should either fall back down on its wheels or go all the way over.