Cicatrix Build Diary

I'm considering a wee name change too, Daiske needs too much explaining and no one can pronounce it. The apparent letter between the S and the K is a semi circle that stops it getting stuck on its back, probably wont have that at Edinburgh as it would have to be made of wood, and I cant be bothered :lol: .

daiske actually means something :shock: i thought it was just something out of a random name generator

I assumed it was Glaswegian for 'the state reached after eleven pints of Tennent's Lager and entirely too much Evangelion'.

Yeah it does, or so my team mate told me.

Wee wikipedia extract:

Daiske (from Greek ΔαιÏκε), refers to both the ancient Heaven's underworld and the god of the Heaven's dead. The word originally referred to just the god; ΔαιÏκε, Daiske its a terrible demon dragon that for only 6 days every centenary (100 years) can take a human form. It was an elision of the house of Lucifer. Eventually, the nominative, too, came to designate the abode of the dead. In the Daiske, no God is immortal.

Haven't done a wee update in a while so thought i'd have a go now. Spurred on by having a problem and not knowing where to put it, but realised I've don't nothing in my build thread for months.

We entered RL Edinburgh with only one robot as Daiske II was doing silly things and I have compromised in a number of places to allow it to just move around, wasnt much chance of it surviving any sort of battle, and with me just being there myself I didn't see the point in just putting it in the arena for the sake of it.

The event went quite well though, coming second (I think) in the first fight to Drumroll and winning the second. In the third one of the terminals of the XXL came off leaving the robot completely dead. Fortunately, the only feather fight that was recorded was the one I won, and here it is.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tlg4NgmsZAk

This leads nicely onto my problem, I have tried soldering the wires directly to the terminals of the XXL instead of fitting the screw terminals back on, which everyone seems to agree is the best idea and this has also already been done to the battery terminals. The problem i'm having is really that I keep making a mess of it, I think luck has meant that one of them seems to be solid, but the other wire is just refusing to stay attached. Is there any particular way of doing it that means this wont happen?

In other news, Scar and Eric seemed to go down well and i've seen many people talking about them and asking questions on FB as well as on here, which can't be bad. Plans for them will become clearer soon, I hope, and we will be able to get back with a proper update.

i imagine you wont be able to use the hole left by the terminal block, so

tin both the wire and piece on the board and you should be fine, unless the piece of metal to solder to has come off

The battery terminals that have been done before I got the XXL just seems to be soldered onto the surface of the board, that what i've tried to do with the motor ones. Will get a picture uploaded in a bit.

Photo I mentioned earlier:

http://i1214.photobucket.com/albums/...7-25221307.jpg

Looks strangely artistic...

Actually, just thought of what it reminds me of, anyone remember Thunderbirds? Its like the bit at the end/start (cant remember which) of each show where they show you an extreme close-up of something and you have to guess what :lol:

Update time

Managed to fix the XXL after I got a new soldering iron, the tip was so mashed the old one wasn't functioning anymore and because it was a cheap-ish make it was cheaper to buy a new one than to hunt for spares. So, got myself a butane powered beastie and its done the job (for the moment at least)

Secondly, i've been really unhappy about how the ESC is limiting the current so heavily that the robot is almost totally uncontrollable, just making it move is like trying to defuse a time bomb, one slip of the finger making the stick move even remotely quickly and it kills all power. So, i've decided to go back somewhat to my fiendishly complicated way I had originally. The original setup was an XL in the front pod controlling those 2 wheels, then 2 electronizes on each of the back wheels, this was then changed to an XXL controlling all 4 wheels. Now, the setup is an XL in the front pod and an XXL in the back pod with y-leads allowing control from one tx. Its not the simplest method by any means, but I don't really want to splash out on a Wotty 100 or Sidewinder when the front pod will not always be attached anyway and an XXL will do the job of powering two drills just fine.

Now for the bad news, batteries haven't been used since RL Edinburgh so was going to give them a charge before testing the new/old setup and it seems to have died, not sure if its the adapter or charger itself so i'll need to give it a test and either get a new charger or new power cable/adapter. Also need a few bullet connectors before the robot will be able to be tested anyway and will have to come up with a way to distribute the power to both ESC's in a way that when one is removed it doesn't mess up the whole system, but that will be a game to play another day as I might test it using 2 sets of batteries instead just to make it sure all works.

As you might guess from this update, Daiske II has become less complete that it was before as I have whipped the XL from it and put it back in Cicatrix. Its almost certain that what will happen there is that my returning team mate will get bits and pieces for it himself on his return, which is only 4 weeks away, and I will not touch it until then. However, for all you Daiske fans (aye right), don't despair, his bigger brother Daiske II will enter the arena one day.

Will be more updates to come on other robots soon, Eric and Scar are as they were for my last update on them but we'll begin work on them soon, again, probably when my team mate returns from his Japanese galavant, Jamie becomes free-er and there was talk of Gary helping, but I think he has moved to Aberdeen? So bit of a trek for him :lol: . Might consider a wee rebranding on the team next month too, Team Scar suited us and still does suit us, but i'm not sure if its right/a good team name, will need to have a discussion with the team and see what we think about that though.

But to close, we're hoping to have by some point next year 2 ( finally working) Heavyweights and 3 (finally completed) Featherweights, so hopefully all is looking well for us. Sorry for the long update, if you've made it this far, thanks for sitting through it :crazy:

Unnecessarily complicated and difficult-to-follow ESC wiring for the win!
It was convoluted but so far it's been the most reliable setup in Cicatrix :lol:

Feels like I haven't done any proper robot stuff in aaaaaages; damn this being busy malarky. Having said that, I've got 720kg of slabs arriving tomorrow as work begins on setting up a workshop. Not long though till I'll be free to help out with Eric. Just thinking, it's probably one of the most replicated robots now, since Harry's made a fleaweight version of it (and I'm considering a beetleweight version too :proud: )