Oooh! I had never noticed that. Here's hoping!
Dad just came home with 5mm chopping board for our top plates. The whole robot is made from varying thicknesses. Are we the only robot to have been made entirely from chopping boards?
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Oooh! I had never noticed that. Here's hoping!
Dad just came home with 5mm chopping board for our top plates. The whole robot is made from varying thicknesses. Are we the only robot to have been made entirely from chopping boards?
Mine was going to be all HDPE but I've got enough weight left to add a 3mm steel band around the sides
That's not Inertia XL, that's just a completely different robot!?
The chances are I will be using an anti-spinner device this year for fighting NST however it has changed a little bit this year :twisted:
Quick video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nelFHBSR ... s5-DmEcW8=
Please excuse my driving; I can't get it to go in a straight line safely in the house, haha. It's (oddly) quite hard to control at low speeds.
So, lifter is more or less complete. Let us know what you think!
Armour next. :)
think it looks pretty awsome
That's awsome!
I really like the design of it, 4-bar electric lifter, dont think thats been done before, have to see how it fairs at the champs, cant wait to fight it
Your using Electronize right? Turn down the rate on them, it'll give you more low end control. That should help.
Just watched the vid, very impressed with how nippy it is, especially on those drill batteries.
It's a very good first robot, that lifter mech looks very sound.
Thought storm 2 was made in to a 4 bar lifter?Quote:
Originally Posted by mattsdragons
Yeah, I believe it uses a geared down electric motor directly onto the back 'legs'. Biohazard used modified linear actuators for its weapon, if I remember correctly. It has been done, perhaps not with such amazing welds as ours, though. :rofl:Quote:
Originally Posted by Bodge Job
Thanks for the kind words, guys!
Edit: oooh, 400 posts.
Ah Ye, forgot about them? I ment with this kind of system in FW's
Nothing majorly interesting from tonight; just a cardboard mockup of the armour to be. Only brainstorming, the shape is likely to change.
http://i1088.photobucket.com/albums/...entless/18.jpg
I'd like to say the tiles have been damaged by the robot, but my dad happened to fill in the grout gaps today. I came >this< close to pretending, then I realised how sad that would be. :lol:
We spent a surprisingly long time beginning with the armour yesterday. We had compound angles to deal with that we hadn't expected, so we didn't get masses done (or we did, depending on how you look at it...)
Two chunks of chopping board that vary in thickness from about 22mm to 24mm thick. Should keep most of the nasty stuff at bay, as long as I can consistently point the front of our robot at the spinny things. :roll:
Between these two pieces alone we've added almost a kilo in weight!
A few pics: http://s1088.photobucket.com/albums/i32 ... elentless/
It's really going to change the way the whole thing looks.
Wow, bulky armour 0_0. Looks great, I'm especially liking the 4 bar ratio which ought to work much better than a simple pivot in this arrangement.
Only thing I'd change is the drill packs, could have something with much more performance for less weight & volume for only £30-35 these days!
It crossed my mind the other day that our robots are actually quite similar. Same 4 wheel drive system and wheel lay out, same battery and ESC locations. Same construction method right down top the central supports. The only difference is the width of the central section and the weapon of choice. Its interesting what variation you can get from similar setups :)
Thank you! We're quite pleased with the ratio. It is fast enough to be useful, whilst still able to lift 10kg+ at the tip without much trouble.Quote:
Originally Posted by ewan
As for the batteries, I am aware of far superior packs being available for not much. I would love to use, I don't know, two 8.4v or perhaps 9.6v 3000-4000mah nimh packs in series, but these should do us fine. I think the truth is, my dad starts to lose interest if we use all shop-bought parts; it's the inventing that he enjoys, and so we have stuck with these batteries. It is true that they get extremely hot, which is really rather worrying, but they don't seem to restrict the performance of the thing. At stall/startup we're guessing some 40a minimum is what they have to supply, and they seem to do it, but as I say, they get very hot. I read somewhere that nicd cells simply don't supply what they can't; they don't discharge harder than they can?
Definitely upgrading for robot #2!
It had occurred to me as well, we have very similar bulkhead designs. You're using gimsons, right? It'll be interesting to see how much better they are than good old 12v drills, we may have to have a game of sumo!Quote:
Originally Posted by Eventorizon
Bit more progress on the armour/wheel protection. We got what we're calling chocks in, and we cut the basic strips for the sides. Pics, as ever, here - http://s1088.photobucket.com/albums/i32 ... elentless/ :)
It's really changing in look. It's gone from all squares to all triangles with just a few bits of plastic. And, it's huge! It'll be almost a perfect 50cm x 50cm square. I'm still getting to grips with it myself. Oh well, some robots are big, some are small. Turns out this one is a bit beyond big. :wink:
Our main tactic will be to sit on enemy robots until they surrender. :lol:
How are you getting on with cutting all the odd angles into the LDPE?
I'm having serious problems getting all the panels to sit flush on my wooden bot, but I can sort that out with a belt sander!
thats baddass man :P
These last few parts we have done on a table saw (half visible here and covered in stuff - http://s1088.photobucket.com/albums/i32 ... 012266.jpg). The bulkheads we had to do with whatever we could, jigsaw, hand saw, finger nails, teeth, swearing, etc. As a result the cuts aren't great. My dad spotted the table saw as a second hand model, used for display. Aside from a crack in one of the handles, it seems to work perfectly (for a lot less than a new one). We can get accurate cuts, or accurate by our standards, on any angle from 0-45 degrees. It has revolutionised what we can do. Now it's the imperfections in the raw board that hinder precision when cutting angles and such.Quote:
Originally Posted by PJ-27
For HDPE/LDPE, I strongly recommend a table saw. It has a huge surface area, both the metal table bit and the big saw itself, so it doesn't do much melting. If it does, it just blasts it away with the power of the saw. It is better than any jigsaw/handsaw/lots-of-swearing combination by a mile. :)
Thanks Harry, haha.
Really changing fast now! In short: wheel protection is on, and the front panel for the lifter is also on and.. that's it?! It sounds so simple and easy when you say it like that!
Anyway, pics pics pics! - http://s1088.photobucket.com/albums/i32 ... elentless/
I am rather fond of the shape. Really quite pleased, it's as if it was designed this way! Let me know what you think. :lol:
Looks really tough and well built. Hopefully it does well.
:D looks awesome
Wow, looks awsome!
This looks really good, you have created a really slick looking robot. Do you have enough weight to add some more thickness to the sides, with some bigger bolts and more of them. I'm just thinking of spinners. :)
I would be up for that :-) It will be interesting to see, I reckon the Gimsons will be more reliable as it has steel teeth but they may not provide as much power as the standard drill motors... Whiteboard perhaps?Quote:
Originally Posted by Relentless
And the exterior armour look just plain cool, nice sloping sides to deflect spinners, no such luxury for me at the front or the sides (Spare wheels on order!) The whole thing looks incredibly well designed and built!
Thanks guys! I actually think a game of sumo could be great fun. Speed-controller-cooking drive-motor-frying rubber-burning-fun!
We haven't got enough weight to make big thick bulky side protection as we had hoped (misjudged how heavy the material is). We figured that we have two options; try to absorb the impacts, or try to just keep them out. Since we can't just block them with big thick armour, we've opted for sides that will flex and hopefully absorb the shocks. It's 5-6mm board, unsupported in the middle. We could possibly have done 10mm but I thought that's halfway between the two. It's not strong enough to take the hits, and it's not flexible enough to absorb them. I can kick the sides pretty hard and they stand up to it with no problem. Certainly non-spinners should be OK.
Either way, we have about 23mm board on the front, which I hope to point at any nasty spinny robots that come our way!
Thanks again. Today we should have progress on the top panels. :)
You are also using RoboChallenge Blue wheels by the look of it so it will be a real test of ESC's and drive motors, are you using Electronize ESC as well?
'may not provide as much power as the standard drill motors' ahaa, the opposite should be true, but I'm as interested as you guys to see, will depend on lots of factors like voltage, weight distribution and so on
Mine are running off a 14.8V Lipo and I have a 54-46% weight distribution (front to back about the centre of the wheelbase) according to solidworks.
We have an unknown distribution (lol), 12v drills at 18v and yes, two Electronize 30a ESCs.
We have more weight over the front wheels. It actually benefits control, we steer around the front of the robot whilst the back wheels slide a little. Makes for some pretty interesting drifting!
Are you using the 14.4v models?
Interestingly you 2 have quite similar robots in design but have taken 2 very different approaches to making them.
Ellis, you have taken a more 'Bitza' approach of using existing materials, blood, sweat, tears and hope!
Alex on the other hand has carefully designed in CAD, bought Li-Po's etc...
Apologies if I've got that all wrong! But there's nothing wrong with either approach, be interesting to see how they pit against each other. Personally I'd like to see them turn out quite equal.
As for the Gimson motors I believe they use Drill motors for power the hrs-550s (various voltages), they just have the massive added advantage of Metal gear boxes, supported shafts and decent mounting points.
We have to have a dual now! We can't leave without going Mono'a'Mono! (Is that the right spelling of that?)
don't forget a compination of the two
4wd drill 18v lifter + 4wd gimpson spinner = 4wd 19.2v lifter lol :)
That insane concept did cross my mind for a havey weight robot, have a spinning disc and a lifter on the same side. The arms of the lifter and the two actuators going on either side of the disc, the disc motors below the actuators and have the ESC's and batteries at the sides as per both designs... it would be a mad design, mad build and a mad robot!
And sadly, currently illegal! D:Quote:
Originally Posted by Eventorizon
Well, we have more or less finished it. We have a few more things to do but nothing too major. Perhaps another day on it to get everything as right as can be.
The top panels have all been quite rushed. We are leaving for the UK on the 31st, and my dad has a music client in from tomorrow (23rd) to the 27th, so we've really had to push. That plus our original cuts on the plastic (mainly the inner bulkheads) being really quite... lacking, means the panels are all a bit twisted and slightly odd. It looks great in pictures, though!
http://s1088.photobucket.com/albums/i32 ... elentless/
It weighs 13.1kg. Will probably be about 13.2kg when 100% complete. The drive has dulled quite some, as expected, not majorly though. We're a bit worried about our battery life. We only have 2.6ah, which has been fine until now, but with the added weight we may be pushing our luck for 3 useful drive minutes. We shall see. I think it's quite uncommon for battles to last the full 3 minutes?
Anyway, off to bed! Let me know what you think. :)
Most peoples batteries are capable of doing nearly 2 fights, 2.6ah should be enough but if your using the standard drill cells, then they won't be very good quality, and thats whats letting you down.
Don't worry about it looking uneven, some of the spinners you're up against will soon 're-model' it ;)
As for the cells I'd discharge them and then trickle charge them nice and slowly the night before the event. Then on the morning (at the event) give them a fast charge until they're brimming!
Then after each fight (once they've cooled down, do not charge hot) give them another fast charge.
You get some pretty decent gaps between qualifier fights. They should last fine, plus I'll bring you those spares (they're not made into packs though, so bring some gaffer tape!)
ps. Just looked through the photos, I like the way the armour moves with the lifting mech. Reminds me of a turtle! Pulling it's head in.
Tormenta is looking AMAZING (He or She?)! I looked through the build album watching it develop and it is very well built, by my standards anyway. Is it going to stay that white colour or is it going to get a make over. I deliberately spent a few more pounds to get my parts on Black so I did not have to paint it afterwards but the day we can buy a black chopping board will be an interesting day to say the least.