First Time Bot Builder/Buyer

*gimson :)

Ill give it a shot:

Mechanical / structural
Robot chassis (depends upon weapon and design obviously, for a boxy design as you suggest maybe 4wd is best?)
Armour (or none :))
Drive motors
Gearboxes (of not already on motors as with drill motors)
Wheels
Drive motor and drive train (if 4wd with two motors for example) mounts
Weapon motor(s)
Weapon drive medium (belt/chain etc)
Weapon support
Weapon disc/bar etc
Other fixings and design features additional

Electronic
Drive speed controller(s)
Weapon controller (could be another speed controller or a relay switch for example)
RC Receiver (or Rx)
Main battery
Receiver power source (most speed controllers will take this from the main battery so you dont need a separate battery though)
Power connectors (battery connectors as well - you might want to take the battery out of the robot for charging)
Wiring (cables linking everything together)
Transmitter (or Tx)

Tools and other stuff


May have missed something out in my tiredness but thats a half decent brief summary

http://www.micro-maul.co.uk/vertigo/img_1397.jpghttp://www.micro-maul.co.uk/vertigo/img_1397.jpg

Thats what the insides of a spinner may look like before tidied :)

how much u think i could get everything i need for? minus the weapon components and chassis and armor.id need the wheels to be larger than the stuff inside so i could make a invertable rambot but still keeping it low and as slim as possible.

I still maintain that you can build a feather for under £100, ok this means making your own controllers (using microswitches and servos), scrounging a lot. Realistically £300 could make you a pretty good feather. DB5 is probably in the £500 region, the new scorpian probably over a grand - Geoff??

the weapon motor alone is £600+ Ed, a grand may be a low guess. :) Can you email your address to me Ed, Josh wants some titanium cncing (you are doing it i believe?), so i need to post it to you.

Drop me an email Tom, I have some second hand bits you can buy if you like. It may be monday/tuesday before i can reply properly though, as im busy until after the mold event.

id would use the cheapest speed controllers as they probably cost more than anything. may sound stupid this bit but if it was a 4wd rambot how many speed controllers would i need?

2 or 4, depends on the power requirements of your motors

Tom .....Youd need 2 speed controllers ...one for the right hand side and one for the left.
They are however often combined into ONE dual controller.
E.G. http://www.robotcombat.com/store_scorpionxl.htmlhttp://www.robotcombat.com/store_scorpionxl.html

(Message edited by woody on April 25, 2007)

You could get by with one. If you want to invest in the best quality speed controllers for bot-specific applications, most of these will have dual channels suitable for driving two or four motors (you can run four if you hook the motors in parallel).

James, just pass on the Ti at the weekend, will save you the postage. I wont be able to do it before next week anyway.