Can't you try something like a voltage regulator. Or just running everything no the same voltage. Or limiting the throws on your Tx so that Drive or Weapon only gets half movement, and so in turn half voltage?
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Can't you try something like a voltage regulator. Or just running everything no the same voltage. Or limiting the throws on your Tx so that Drive or Weapon only gets half movement, and so in turn half voltage?
Cant be bothered with messing around with voltage regulators. I could always just swap over to my DX6 for the moment to this robot and use dual rates. I want the weapon to be run at a higher voltage, if I run the weapon at the same voltage as the drive it will be pretty rubbish and if I run the drive at the same voltage as the weapon there will be a fire :lol:
I'm just working on it as I type now, gonna wire it all up as I would do to run it all on the same voltage then try to work out dual rates on my DX6 then maybe have a test video done tomorrow. Or, if I get the rates the wrong way round, i'll have a wanted thread up for new motors :proud:
Get a cheap brushless setup from Giant Cod for the drum. Saves the need for faffing around with dual rates and you get MOAR DESTRUCTION!!! :twisted:
By cheap what are we talking? I haven't ever even looked at brushless stuff before.
EDIT: Just had a quick look, looks like at that size it could be a lot cheaper than I expected. Definitely something to consider for the future....
I probably have a big pile of money to spend on Cicatrix drum to get it ready for April so i'm gonna be pretty skint very shortly and for a very long time. Well, unless I get a decent job that is, and fitness/tennis instructors with dodgy ankles and knees aren't in very high demand, especially in January with 70mph winds :lol:
ANOTHER EDIT: Hang on hang on, how would that help Jamie? :lol:
How would what help? Getting a brushless?
If so, then even on 7.4V a brushless will be much more impressive than the brushed motor that's in there at the moment. That way, you can run the whole robot on 7.4V which saves the need to have one voltage going to one ESC and a higher/lower voltage going to another ESC. In turn, that saves you having to worry about setting dual rates or physically limiting the travel of the transmitter sticks.
Although if this is going be doing educational demos, maybe brushless ain't such a good idea :uhoh:
Ahhh I see what you mean, I thought you meant just swap the weapon motor for brushless and just run it at 14.8v. would probably be cheaper to buy 2 drive motors that can run on 14.8v. I'm almost certain the ESC would handle that as its pretty much a FW esc, as is the weapons one.
In a way I suppose it would be, to demonstrate brushless over brushed motors, but when it starts going crazy that'd probably be bad :P .
When I get a real job i'll get new drive and weapon motors for it, try to get some gyro dancing on the go 8)
True, I think two of those MFA motors is just over £20 so it probably would work out cheaper. And the higher voltage ones run on 12V+ so they'd do nicely at 14.8V.
And gyro dancing FTW! (is it sad that that's one of the things I'm looking forward to the most with going back to a brushless setup in Drumroll? :proud: )
Not at all, thats pretty much the big reason i'd want this to be brushless too :lol: . Just watch out for the walls this time :proud:
Dual Rates!? Pah. Just don't move the drive stick as far! Or use Electronize ESC's and turn down the output. Or use a DX5E and the built in mixing with it's stupid half throws, although in your case useful!
I was considering just physically limiting the stick, but I dont have any of the things youve mentioned so cant do any of them. Electronize escs would be too big for a BW too I imagine.
True.
Did a spin up of Minitrix today, but had to take the teeth off as they were catching the edge of the motor.
Video is taking ages to upload but will upload it as soon as it is complete.
Right, all done.
http://i1214.photobucket.com/albums/...0-22-05-57.jpg
nice! shame there is no arena to fight these in yet...
Nice, how much does the drum weigh?
I'm trying to find new batteries for the only set of scale that would go low enough to measure that, but its some weird watch batteries it uses but will keep you posted.
Many-a-times have the kitchen scales been used to weight robot parts and robots.
Or the old trick with bathroom scales, where we measure ourselves, and then again holding the robot. Take away the difference, job done! That's accurate right?. :?
I usually use the bathroom scales for whole FWs, but I dont think they'd be sensitive enough to be able to do it with a small bit of a BW. The kitchen scales ae the ones that use funny batteries, will try to get some tomorrow :(
Fairly long while since i've updated this.
Not a lot has happened recently, have battled with a few hydraulic tanks (unsuccessfully) and also heard that I cannot attend the UK FW Champs this year, which is also rather annoying. So i'm going to concentrate on getting Eric and Eric Jr ready for RL Edinburgh with some upgrades that I have been thinking about doing for a while but been concentrating on other things (namely spinners) that will have to wait until next year.
1. Blue speedos out and Scorpion XL in
2. Drills out and Gimsons in
3. New wheels, probably blue ones and the Gimsons seem to big, but will have a new set of both
4. Upping the voltage from 14.4v to 19.2v in line with Cicatrix so I can have 2 sets when only Eric Jr is competing (Cicatrix and Daiske II's)
5. The Robocoat „ :wink:
6. Paint job to make it more Eric-esque
Think thats enough to get on with for the moment :D Hoping it get it ready for a few test battles with Drumroll/Carcinus before they go and defend the Scots Honour before the Championships.
April 7th/8th :wink:Quote:
Originally Posted by Anttazz
Need to find somewhere open and safe to test, not sure that car park is large enough to contain any potential shrapnel from the brushless setup!
Pity you can't make it to the champs, but getting things ready for RL Edinburgh with plenty of time to spare sounds like a good plan. I look forward to seeing the Robocoat„ 8)
I've put it in the diary, no stupid disco/ceilidh interruptions :lol:
If Drumroll can't get traction on that carpark at my house there's no way Eric Jr will manage it! :lol: Definitely need something a bit flatter and more open. At the moment, the plan for Eric Jr is that the outer layer will be all HDPE with the metal underneath at the corners of the polycarb, just don't hit the flipper and we'll be fine for shrapnel :D
Won't give too much away on the Robocoat„ at the moment, more of a trial to see if I can do what i'm planning first then i'll get some photos up. First things first though, i'll get the internal bits done as at the moment it is phenomenally slow...
Shame you can't make it to the Champs. Never actually got to see your robots run last year.
Most people didn't get to see them run PJ, in 2 fights it moved about 3 feet but got 2 points in each and in the last fight where it was actually working it was flipped out after about 20 seconds. So you didn't miss much :lol: .
Can't remember Daiske's fights very well, but one of them was against me and he drove straight in the pit (claimed it wasn't to run away from Buzzbar), and the only robot he beat was Boner, and I don't think he had a hand in the actual defeat at all.
Right, got started on the list I posted earlier, have removed the drill and Blue ESC's and Ewan tells me that the Gimson motors should arrive tomorrow :) . Also awaiting a set of Robochallenge wheels as I was fairly sure the Gimsons were too big when I tried them on the drill motors, but I still have a set so will be giving both of them a try at some point before reassembling it all again.
Few photos so far:
Rear view with polycarb backplate off:
http://i1214.photobucket.com/albums/...2-28200324.jpg
Detached from most of the rest of the robot and baseplate to make it easier to get the motors out:
http://i1214.photobucket.com/albums/...2-28204334.jpg
Offending articles removed:
http://i1214.photobucket.com/albums/...2-28213625.jpg
Looks neat. Nice to see some polycarb again for a change, everything is black or white HDPE nowadays almost :P
I myself am building a black HDPE armored robot but thats not relevant! ;)
Thanks Danny, if I manage to get it the way I want it for Edinburgh all of the polycarb will be hidden by HDPE :lol: But, I will have a vinyl wrap on the HDPE to make it look more like Eric.
Long time since my last update but not much has happened. Waiting for new wheels for Eric Jr so I can mount the Gimsons appropriately so as to keep the ground clearance fairly low. The mount of them is much smaller than the mounts from the old drill motors so will need a bit of a booster seat to be mounted on, but will need the wheels to determine that.
In other news, a number of our robots have changed hands. Minitrix has left the building and is USA bound, after seeing that the competition this year was 8hrs away I though I would try selling it to someone who has attending that. It didn't. However it has found a new home where i'm sure it'll be used so thats the main thing. Also, our 2 Antweight robots have left us for another person who will actually use them, so its all good.
Essentially, from the cash I made from that it was a straight swap for Chimera, the Heavyweight that has been up for sale over the past few weeks on the forum. Met up with Colin at the weekend and came up with a few ideas on where the future of the robot lies. Plan at the moment is to throw a set of 750's I have in the workshop in there and convert it from friction to chain drive. Should be pretty quick as the wheel are huge compared to most robots out there, 13inch rims plus tyres, not sure exactly what that makes em overall. This also makes the robot absolutely huge, and barely fit in the back of the car.
Took a photo to illustrate the size of Chimera compared to Scar:
http://i1214.photobucket.com/albums/...3-18122924.jpg
This is a photo I took for a friend of mine's kid who wanted to see the robots, but it can go on here now that it has been totally slated on FB for my laziness, someone on here will no doubt also notice what I mean....
http://i1214.photobucket.com/albums/...3-20133923.jpg
Been doing a bit of tidying up on Chimera today, took the wheels off and sanded one of them down to the metal and resprayed it with a black anti rust primer as you can see from the photo that it was looking a bit orange with rust so now it looks a bit tidier. Also gave the hubs a coat of the same primer, just to keep it tidy as they were heavily rusted. Won't bother with photos as its one of those small jobs that takes a long time. Also had a look at how the blade is wired up and tried to work out how to get it all going, seems simple enough.
COMPETITION TIME
On to real news though, considering running a competition between here and the schools to see if anyone can come up with a new name/colour scheme for Chimera, but the original may well still stay, and likewise I may only change one of those things. Only rules would be that the robot has to stay as it is, nothing major can be added or taken away structurally, for example, a flashing light/horn can be added, a flipper cannot.
Not really much of a prize for the winner, will seem like more to the kids in school than you guys :lol: . I'll write the name of the designer on the robot and of course decorate it as their design states. I'll also try to do something like get one of those autograph books signed by the people/robots at RL Edinburgh, which will be the robots first event and add a few photos of the robot to the book. I'll also maybe see if Weston will mention them in his event report for that event when looking at the robot to get them on youtube if he doesn't mind :)
Essentially it'll be judged by all of us, with the winners being decided by myself, Colin (if he wants to be involved in the process that is) and the rest of the team. I'll post the school drawings on here as and when they're done.
Long update to say very little I know, if anyone wants to enter, just post a description/name idea on here or a drawing of the design.
Hope this works well :)
One of the wheels was plain black, so repainted to look similar, will probably have to do the other one too. Don't like my freehand painting much mind you.
http://i1214.photobucket.com/albums/...3-22132234.jpg
In keeping with my usual flitting between projects, I have been working at getting Eric Jr and Cicatrix going again. Sadly, it has been a bad 24hrs for the robots.
Eric Jr has 1 Gimson mounted and the other ready to be mounted, but I heard from Dave that my CO2 bottle isn't filling up, so i'll need to have a look at that and see whats going on. In light of this, I wired up Cicatrix again, taking out one of the ESC's and going back 1 XXL for the whole system. All seemed to be going well, had everything but the BEC wired up, so soldered in the BEC and connected it to the receiver.
Then, BOOM! SMOKE! FIRE!
No idea what causes is as the link isn't in and the BEC supposedly has reverse protection even if it was wired up wrongly (which it wasn't) so pretty stumped. Anyway, BEC wires are really burnt and were roasting hot, as for the unit itself, it looks ok but not sure yet. Will get everything else on it done then go from there...
You're really not having much luck with the electronics in Cicatrix :(
Does this mean I've got a good chance of winning the Scottish mini-champs on Monday then? :lol:
If you want, I'd be happy to bring Cicatrix back here at some point, strip the wiring right back, double-check all the connectors and re-do everything, see if that eliminates whatever mystery wiring-virus which is manifesting itself in the robot. I could clip all the wires up as well, might make it easier to keep track of what's what. I think it's still within its 1yr manufacturer warranty :wink:
Well, I have Rover, which weighs a little over 4.5kgs, so it should be able to beat Carcinus at least :proud:
If you like you can have a go Jamie :) . Over the past few days I have taken all of the wiring out and resoldered them to every connector and motor tab there is and despite the simpler system it still doesn't work half as well as when we were using 2 different makes of controller. To be honest, the bits you did work as well as when you did them, its my dodgey electrics that have ruined it, maybe it just doesn't like me :lol:
Did the large capacitor next to the battery terminals blow ? That has happend to me before and I never found a cause...
On my XL, the large capacitor broke off in battle. But strangely, it still runs perfectly fine. No idea what the capacitor did, although not sure if it's something to do with current-limiting, as the controller doesn't seem to cut out when I throw the throttle straight forward.Quote:
Originally Posted by razerdave
I'll have a look on Monday Tony, see if I can put my severely limited wisdom to the test. And yeah, Rover should be able to trounce Carcinus!
Sorry Dave should have been clearer, its an external BEC. The BEC of the XXL has been completely removed.
As far as I can see the XXL looks like its still intact. All the smoke was coming from the BEC wires anyway, and strangely it was on the output side rather than the input, so was only supposed to be 5V. Hopefully its just the BEC anyway...
http://i1214.photobucket.com/albums/...4-07205902.jpg
http://i1214.photobucket.com/albums/...4-07205912.jpg
The whole setup is really causing me a real headache, and if the XXL still does its stupid current limiting thing i'll be really annoyed, re-considering using one of the 50A Wotty controllers if I can find a way to make it fit.
I had the same happen to the wires comming out of my electronize. I just had to resolder them and never found the cause
Strap wotty to top of robot. Problem gustav?
Could wire in my Roboteq for tomorrow and tape it on, but i'll probably catch fire for no apparent reason too :lol:
Strangely enough Max, it happened to my electronize at last years champs when I was fighting LF3 and Tiny Toon. I think that happened because it touched onto a positive terminal somewhere though, but it all still worked again afterwards too.
Do you mean the casing touched the positive terminal because that could have happened in my bot
I meant the BEC wires touched the terminal.
HW Update
The progress of the HW's has been put in jeopardy again, really should have stayed in bed this whole week...
As many of know you know (mainly the ones who have asked me to help move heavy things :lol: ) I tore the ligaments in my ankle around 2 years ago and recently had them repaired around 6 months ago and have been doing rehab stuff since then. I noticed that the rehab was insanely painful at times right down the leg that was affected, with the advice essentially being man up by my folks and physio. Got insanely sore at a show I was doing last week so went to the Doc's who said I have overworked and now have a hernia that needs surgery to repair.
So basically, I can lift less now than I could when my ankle was wrecked, and when I do the pain is much worse. So really all the treatment has been a great success :lol:. It makes lifting parts of Chimera almost impossible so i'm not sure how thats going to pan out as far as RL Edinburgh is concerned, really hope I can find some way of getting as many robots as possible to be working for it, I want to have at least Eric Jr, Cicatrix, Rover and a HW going for it, but i'm not so sure now.
Was already pretty annoyed at missing the Champs/Gadget Show this year, so this is , quite literally another kick in the stones.
But on a positive note, enjoy the champs everyone last year it was awesome and be sure to have a look at all the different exhibits, its a geeks paradise and also has a number of super model types promoting stuff, one of which my cousin got her number last year, so it is possible guys :wink: