Skipdiving Robotics

We now have our antweight ready for Coventry on 1st Nov! It's a collaboration between me and the 5 yr old :)

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Just a quick update, bit the bullet and ordered this from the local fabrication place. It's due to be ready in about a month or so as I I'm planning on fighting it next year. Thinking of getting them to make a heavy version as well as I can't weld lol. It's feeling like bite the bullet time, if I want to compete regular with a heavy and get to the champs I need to start designing stuff from steel lol.

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Got the 5 yr old's robot ready for AWS on Saturday

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Attended AWS 45 this weekend, loaded the car up and trucked down to Coventry eating much Maccy D's and ASDA butties as was possible. Blew up my receivers Wednesday night with some stupid wiring, borrowed one from Razer Dave to whom I owe a massive massive thank you. Had a fab time to the point where I think I may switch from feathers to ants as it's much more regular fighting and a dead friendly crowd. Also no flaming drill motors to contend with. Pick up heavy chassis some time this week, battery packs are ready to go, umming and arring about dx6i or plumming for a dx7, really need it to failsafe for heavy regardless. Half the electrics from the feather are blown, wheels are wrecked and the chassis is a joke. May just keep that battery and speedo and bin it as it'll be months before it gets a run out and the cash I will spend sorting it all out I could spend building a decent ant. Anyway, will post some more with heavy pics later in the week. Thanks for reading and some snaps from Saturday. Cheers, Dave.

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Been to the metal people, they say they're nearly done and it will be ready in a week or so. All I know is I'm three hundred notes worse off but it's worth it. Need to sort out some propper drivetrain stuff as the chassis is utterly beautiful: welded, folded, machined and recessed. I have some batteries, some 12V 9Ah to go in the heavy and am flirting with the idea of mag drive and some custom gearboxes, only problem being that I need the wheels to be 200mm minimum. I've spent so much money its frightening. Gone are the days of this being a "bit of fun"...this is frightfully serious now given the money I keep forking out lol. Erm I randomly drew something...hic...(see below). Also worried that Craig will go mad after he realises I took a shine to Cherub but am too daft to make the horns. Oh and are bulkheads needed for strength? I have chassis (nearly and batteries), also have some wheel chair motors, but am pining after some custom mag gearboxes, if I buy someone enough beer will they make me some mag boxes? I need a wotty, or some other esc as well. oh and a dx6i! and an orange to failsafe.

I have postoned wabbajack building and can't be bothered with feathers anymore fed up of drills breaking and unsuccessfully damaging fingers trying to hammer flaming unf nuts into molten hospital bed wheels. No I say,...no more! Heavies and ants! Heavies and ants! Now need to see if any of the EO's will let me enter something next year with my non existant heavy haha.
Over and out....Dangerous Dave.

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Picked up heavyweight chassis today.

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I fear the name Twisted metal is in use already.

http://robotwars.wikia.com/wiki/Twisted_Metal

Just go for it and go 4wd! With a chassis like that it will be easy and not all that more expensive yet will have a ton more push

Gutted about the Twisted Metal name lol, and am looking at 4WD now just trying to work out mph, gear ratio and motor torque and wheel size and so on :)

Chassis looks good Dave, look forward to seeing it progress!

Looks pretty cool! And I have to agree with Matt as well, 4WD would suit this so well! Wouldn't take much in the way of modification from your original designs too I'd imagine

No I think you're right, I'm just on the hunt for some motors and gearboxes as it seems a shame to put wheel chair running gear in after so much design and thought has gone into it. Trying to decide whether to use 4wd or 2wd, and if 4wd whether to use 2 gearmotors and chain them together or go with 4 seperate motors.

I think it depends on how much money you're willing to sink into it really. I think a set of 4 wheelchair motors would work, but if you have the money to stick a pair of Bosch 750 equivalents in there, that'd be a lot more powerful! Of course, you need the motors as well as the ESCs/batteries to cope which both aren't cheap I'm led to believe...

Money's not a problem. A lot of the robots with several axles run a motor per side and chain each side together.

In which case then, I'd go for it! Maybe the Iskara 800s I think they're called, have a look at those - heard good things about those. Don't think they make Bosch 750s anymore...

If you chain drive it too, I'm sure that'll work pretty nicely - seems to work well for the ones that do use it!

Yeah it's just a case of using something that's easy to get hold of if it breaks.

As a general rule now, I try and buy 3 motors so I have one for screw up's. Look at some of the mid-range mags for what you need

Iskra. Some UK robots use those.

Bullfrog does the task with the 24V 1.2kw.

More rugged and a tad heavier than the Bosch 750. Also, any serious hydraulics shop should be able to supply them, as those are used a lot in hydraulic groups for tailgates or small forklift/pallettransporters.

Oh ok that's cool. I'll look into them :) The big worry for me is making gear boxes lol.

Spent some of today getting my heavy weight stuff together. Went and got the heavy body from where I'd dumped it and found it a spot in the back room to live. Also found my other heavy bits and started a stock pile. Thought I'd also put something up of the insides of the shell, obviously just an empty shell at the minute. I'm tied up paying for Christmas at the minute but come January I'm going to carry back on. Not pictured is a charging pack for the SLA's and a load of bracketry and bolts I've gotten together. Just deciding whether to have a go with the wheel chair running gear or get something made with Mags and stuff. The whole thing is suppose to be on a budget and keep telling myself mags will take months to sort out. The entire thing stands me at around £300 so far including motors, batteries and body shell fabrication, as I cut a lot of it myself and then got a friend to weld it all together. I'm thinking about getting some propper brackets CNC'd for the wheel chair motors and building them up as a pair of "pods". They could be unplugged and swapped in a hurry with say four big bolts into the chassis. I'm also in the process of organizing bulkheads and deciding where the axle line will be. Sorry for the long winded description, thanks for reading and taking an interest as ever.

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If you're gonna be running wheelchair motors in there, you should be fine running them off a pair of hacked TZ85s, which'll be by far the cheapest option for the motor controllers (£25 each).

yeah been thinking about using them with a good mixer and a dx6i or something similar. Need to nag you about an antweigh esc after I get paid :)

Well it's been a while dear diary but I have info and a rubbish picture. Decided to dip my toe in the water with a beetle, 1000rpm motors, sabertooth, 12v nihm, 2wd pushy thingy all sandwiched in an ally angle and hdpe cocktail. Everything should turn up soon, I'd put up pictures of chassis so far but would be laughed at. Getting it all under a kilo hasn't been easy! Heavy is still a shell, starting again in march in to finish in time for the summer, have sketched up all the bracketry for the wheel chair motors which has been hard given they usually bolt to a frame and not a flat plate. Thanks for reading as ever.


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You do realise the weight limit is 1.5kg not 1kg?

Is it 1.3kg or somewhere round there? Sort of meant metaphorically about 1kg, its a fair bit lighter than a feather lol. Mindset took a bit of adjusting. The ant came as a kit and I randomly cut some plastic out n taped it together and it somehow ended up about 120grams. I'm having to actively build this using all the same off-cuts and donations that I usually find lying around and it's all so heavy! Is it really 1.5 n not 1.3?

1.5kg here, 1.36kg (3lb) in US and Oz

Ok...the erm website category says 1.36something...should I message them to change it? Or is 1.5kg being allowed as a round number?

There was a vote at the FRA general meeting last year where it was unanimously decided that the beetleweight limit be officially moved up to 1.5kg. The rules page just hasn't been updated yet.

It wasn't unanimous but it was a heavy majority.

If so I don't remember seeing a single vote against the change, but then again it was a year ago and my memory ain't great.

Oh cool thanks for the info. Made some progress and dusted off the trusty Sabertooth. Also treated myself to a new wheelie box after the wheels fell off the other last month.

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Welcome to the world of Beetleweights! such a fun little weight class, one thing i will say though, if you're planning on using Alu angle like that try and make it as thick and as high a grade you can. Lynx at half throttle could slice straight through the cheese grade 3mm stuff, if you go onto Ebay you can find 6082 angle for peanuts and it'll stand up to a bit more.

It looks Huaaggeee BTW, is it just the picture? what are the dimensions?

Ooooorr... you could use Ranglebox threaded bar. :)

Shamless plug, yes, but it really is made for exactly this purpose! All you need to do is drill holes in your plastics, no nuts and washers or tapping threads in brackets.

It's 25cm wide and 20cm long :) I struggled to parse measurements from the existing build diaries so decided to make it up as I went along :)

And Ellis I am about to begin a lifelong relationship with Rangle Box lol. It's sites like that that make robot building possible for people like me that use basic handtools and just enough know-how to be dangerous!

Well been busy down here at the kitchen step. Muchos progressos. Body is ready to go, drive motors turned up and am just about to order hub adapters after i just bought the wrong ones. Also found a brand new servo i didn't know about called an MG90s which im going to put on the robot, maybe a stupid looking hammer or just a sign that pops up. Anyway, decided it needed incorporating somehow. It's rated 1.8kg/cm so dont think it will have the grunt to be a lifter motor. Wheels are here and battery is here, starting to think a 12v 1.6ahr nimh pack is over kill. It's flaming heavy anyway. Really looking forward to going on the 28th now. Also bought some dodgy looking jst connectors to make a removable link from as trying to make robot building as stress free as possible. Thought I would put a picture up of my parts pile :)

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Yeah that servo is a on the small side for even an antweight.

Glad to hear you're going on the 28th, I'll be there with the new Lynx. As Harry said the servo is probably too small for a lifter, look for something with amuch bigger lifting capacity . Also the JST connectors will be fine for a link, just make sure you cut the wires so they're long enough to form a loop when put together. If you want I have a spare 1000mah 3s lipo you can borrow, it's a nano tech pack that doesn't really have the grunt for a robot like Lynx, would work fine in yours though so I'll bring it with me just in case.

That's really nice of you thanks. The plan originally was to have a battery that would run all day on a charge lol. It's cost me in weight, but I'm not really up to having an active weapon first time round so thought the capacity would do nicely with my small motors. It was the smallest pack I could get with a tamiya connector that would go straight on my cheap charger lol. It's hard to explain but I try to re-use and recycle everything as much as possible.

No worries, the connector on the battery is a Deans and I don't have a tamiya adapter for my charger but I'll bring some spare Deans with me and if you want to try the lipo we can change the connector in your machine. I understand the re use and recycle thing especially if you're on a budget, it's nice to see a machine that is built for fun rather than to destroy everything.

Yeah erm well I'm a server technician and design computer networks in the day job so the electrics of the robots take me ten mins to chuck together. So that side always goes great, but I've never even done diy, never mind fabricate robots. I can jigsaw, angle grind and drill and bolt, and have just sort of accepted that without being a fabricator/cnc etc. it's unlikely that I will ever be able to build something at the higher levels. The other big thing is that I have Aspergers so I've also got this weirdly narrow skill set for electronics and computers that's god given, and really struggle picking up anything outside of that. I've built up a relationship with a local fabrication place that built my heavy, which is great whilst you keep lining their pockets. I think if the whole thing became popular at a proffesional level I could understand the thousands people spend. But being a bit of a chav-hippy I quite like recycling house hold objects and electrics. My first robot was wired with a roll of three core and made of chopping board and no one caught on. I'm also working on a solar powered robot I'm just in the process of ruggedising the panel. Life is amazing if you keep your tool bag close and arm yasen with a bit of no-how lol.

Thank you for everything with the battery, I'm a bit scared of the lipo stuff I don't really understand the C's and 2.2's etc. Volts and amps I'm alright with lol.

I will always just build for fun, I've been at it two years and am yet to win a fight!!