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Looking good, nice and compact, I think most FW machines have an approx. similar base size (mine is quite larger)
The only thing I'd be worried about is side and back armour...the material looks too thin judging from what I see on the cad, Earlier on you mentioned 20mm alu but it seems to be less at the wheels.
Other than that it looks solid.
That looks really good what will you make the chassis and bulkheads from?
Btw, what motors are they, as they look very short (in length).
Thanks! I did slightly misjudge a few of the sizes on the CAD, it should be around 15-20mm aluminium or hardox/aluminium depending on what's cheap/available! The innards and bulkheads will all be that 6082 aluminium I spoke about, again at about 15mm to make it all structurally solid, and I'm going to try to make the motor mounts also the inside wall/centre column to again try and make it that bit more compact.
One weapon I didn't post was the front-hinged lifter, which will be a similar design to the back-hinged - I'll be using that one most likely against any spinners that'd be able to get inside the machine when the back hinged lifter's up...
As for the motors too, they're supposed to be drills but I think I've misjudged them a bit. It was adapted from my original which had Banebots gearmotors on it, but they proved to be a bit too expensive so I had to adapt
Minor change to the machine, since I'm having to run on as minimal a budget as I can at the minute, I'm opting to go for just having two-ish weapons at GSL at the minute, the lifter(s) and my anti-spinner weapon. Which is actually just a more intricately designed scoop, but it sounds more threatening to be an anti-spinner device.
It'll still be built with the interchangeable weapons ability though, just the drum likely won't see the light of day for now since I can't afford the motor to run it. Truth be told, I'm still trying to get a spinner on there in the form of a cutting disc to create some sparks and hopefully slight damage to the tougher armours. More about the show appeal of it than anything else, but it's still all up in the air for now.
Also, a quick question for anyone who knows, would I fail a tech check for using a fuse as a removable link? I think I've queried it before, but I'd just like to double check before I design around it!
Fuses can double as removable link.
I hope they can too as I don't have space for both! I just hope that the connections are up to the high amps I will be pulling.
I found it easier to sort of focus on one weapon type per 'bot, I originally planned to have interchangable weapons and stuff n it was hard work. Your designs end up a compromise, n I thought well I'd probably be better dedicating and doing one thing well etc...
Fantastic! Just what I wanted to hear!
I don't see any reason why not from my own experience, they act the same as a removable link anyway, and they're a lot more solid than using a connector from what I can tell... not only that, but they're two in one, one less point of failure and all that.
@Daveimi, I would have done that too (what I did with HardWired I ) but I just thought it'd be a bit more interesting to use the whole removable weapons tactic. I am just sticking with the lifters for now for cost reasons, but I think there's something pretty fun about just being able to say 'I think I'll use a horizontal bar now' mid-tournament. The compromise makes it a lot less cheap, since I can't just design different machines and swap them out having been designed from the ground up for their weapon. I will say though, the lifter will be HardWired II's native weapon, just like how Tornado's 'main' weapon was the scoop.
It's actually been on the cards for a while, I wanted to make HardWired I, II, III etc. not actually progressions, rather just different types of weaponry - HardWired I would have the lifter, II would have a vertical spinner, III a crusher etc. That just naturally evolved into having a machine with the capability for all of them.
Perhaps it's me reverting to my five year old self again watching Robot Wars. "What's the best weapon for a robot?" "ALL OF THEM".
I've almost sourced everything for HardWired II, so the build will be going ahead pretty soon! Unsure whether to build the current version out of steel box section as opposed to paying a fair bit for aluminium I'm not even sure I can get cut and machined yet. Not to mention the risk of having it completely written off through a bad design. It's still on the cards though, if I can get it machined and cut by someone other than myself. The rest of the build is going to have to be hyper-budget too, in order to get to GSL if I get a place. Should be easily doable though now, since I've got all the electronics sorted and that's usually the most expensive bit.
Once I've got the shape and design battle tested, I'll be rebuilding it yet again to make improvements unless of course I get a good one first time, but that's unlikely.
Just as a side note too, purely out of curiosity, if I were to build an entire robot out of, say, meccano (but not actually meccano because that'd be way too weak) and completely rebuild the entire robot to form something of an entirely different shape using the existing parts, would that still conform to the removable weaponry rule, or would that be pushing it a bit?