Whos doing what to what before the next event......

Having had a bad event at worthing even though Ripper won.... the big ball valve didnt fire once !!! Grrr it has already had a complete strip down and some upgrades this week.

It got me thinking... as i have been asked to write and article for a magazine... this would be a good topic.

What do roboteers do between shows with their robots, do they touch them, or constantly work on them !!

Ripper is always being changed, it gets used once or twice a week in school playgrounds, normally demo'ing against wheelie bins, so it must be the most used robot around !!

Since Worthing the Upgrades include...

Extra 1.1kg gas bottle fitted giving a total of 3.3kg now, so should get more big flips.
More flow, better opening of the big valve... hasnt worked properly since the O2
Shifted some weight forwards
Tried to strighten the top pannels as they are like banana's thanks to thor !!


The new gas bottle will arrive tomorrow so a quick test tomorrow night and its ready for a demo im doing on Saturday !


So what went wrong for people in Portsmouth and what the plan for the future....

Eruption.... first event... how did it go?
Why did toon raider keep breaking down?
Why did Thor go home early broken?
Why did the Iron Awes not work so well?
Why did maelstrom catch fire twice?


If you can give me as much info a possible i can use it for the article???

John

upgrades or fixes for me before the next event include replacing wheels or moving wheel axel so ive got more
rear groung clearance, as im getting stuck too much, fixing 2 burkerts again as they are not firing properely :angry:
these are such a pain as they are always problems I must swap to a ball valve system but that will take too
much time which I dont have and also am stuck how to do it aswell. my front hardox scoop needs to be replaced
with maybe a titanium plate so I can get under other robots again but im having trouble getting grade 5 ti :cry:
my rollers need tweaking aswell or lifting a bit so i get more ground clearance. also have got to weld back on my wheely bar that thor smashed off :!: so a little bit to do hope i get most of it done in time.
at normal work ive got to rewire a house, and wire a new house aswell :shock:

Designing new feet for pilgrim! Might put some lights on too :idea:
Oh and Cherub won a fight :mrgreen:

Worthing..........Thor ran well up until it broke a battle switch on the weapon so could only fire one way. An easy fix with a new battle switch and ready for portsmouth

Chuck.....the flipper snapped its welds from the flipper bracket to the ram and needed ally welding so couldnt be done on site.....hence we went home with no robots to fight.

Envy is in my garage waiting for a refit and drive upgrades which will be next year as i am currently building a new robot called Full Tilt. Hope to get that done for portsmouth but will be a push. I believe it will be worth the wait tho producing a very entertaining robot to please crowds.

Apocalypse hasn't worked well all year so I have given up with it. A new design is under construction hope to be ready for the team champs but its going to be tough since Ive hardly done anything so far. Ditching FP for LP, going 4WD. Think a cross of Merlin, Ripper, Big Nipper and Barbaric Response - If you can!

meggamouse might finally be running after the damage from the 02, new lathe assembled ready for siting.
Bet Mr Jonno will have me modding the battlratz and antz and ripper before I get to touch mine.
Might even have Mini mighty mouse running, if it hasn't rusted up......

Ironside, the boring box the spinners cannot break.........might be running.

Satanix only had 1 fight at worthing because it wasn't charged or cool enough for its competition fight after the tanja fight. I'll be going to germany for a full combat competition when the portsmouth events on. I only have one real repair to do, and thats find and fix the cause of this overheating problem!

Ants all worked fine though :) Baby Hell, Stewie, Bulletproof all ran flawlessly (Although St Jimmy is starting to suffer interferance, dan 40MHz!)

NOTHING!!!!!

Seeing as I was sacked from the Team as weapon operator at Worthing, to be replaced by Will Thomas or Mike Lambert, and probably Trevor Wright at Portsmouth, Let them do the repairs :angry: :angry: :angry:

Mr Angry

practicing the black art that is Lipo battery charging! lol

Scorpion, after a fantastic event for her at Worthing, has been put in the workshop and left to the shed fairies :lol:

By Portsmouth they should have completely rewired it, reconfigured all battery packs to a new shape, installed extra wheels for drive stability and rejigged her front points so they are sprung loaded to the floor.

While they're busy I will advising Sean with the bodywork of Fortis (his new machine).

So not alot to do really :lol:

Team Toon Update

Alex has had a word with the Commander in Chief, and it would now appear that I might be given a second chance in a whiteboard at Portsmouth. :D

Toon Raider had an intermittent wiring fault at Worthing, so I shall be working my way through the wiring loom trying to find a broken Anderson or section of cable, replacing with new ones as I go.The repaired gearbox seemed to hold up ok so hopefully I can give it a good test out at when I have sorted the wiring.
Hopefully we will be putting in a Victor Regulator to try and get a bit more pressure to give the flipper that little bit more oomph.Finally i might give the paint job a touch up as Ripper scratched it and left a green smear down 1 side.

Clive

Well...after Worthing, Maelstrom needs some work. So I have been advised by Team Principal to focus my efforts on the following upgrades.

1. New flipper lever arms. The imense power of the 600g buffer upgrade (!) has resulted in the end of the flipper arms to push thru the 20mm steel tubes. Never had these fail before....but the old girl had 3 OOTA at Worthing so not bad

2. 2 x motor fires. Well we thought chaffing (you know how i suffer) but 2 direct shorts on both motors in 2 fights does seem a coincidence. These 400w mobility motors only done 1 event...so maybe the bog std wiring aint up to the job. Will replace the 2nd brush housing wiring before having to rethink (and avoid refitting the old knackd littons)

3. Re tab 2 x battery packs with deans straps. Due to 2) above we blew 2 battery backs - tabs came undo - the amazing Wotty survived both attacks. If 2) above is due to motors drawing too much current we'll have 3 evacuations of the arena in 3 fights ! Might try and get a clamp meter to see what these beasts (!) are drawing.

4. Try out a co2 bottle lever modification to a screw top type design. Team Principal will post the result...probably already done but thought of a simple solution to save swapping the tap fitting. Doenst modify the valve in anyway so maintains saftey etc.

5. Team Principal has had 1.3m x 1.0m sheet of 4mm hardox delivered. 45kg but couldnt get any 3.2mm for love nor money.
Assuming 'Mummy' of Team Principal allows me 'robot play time' (BTW 1 robot minute = 30 earth minutes) then I might have started the gearboxes for the bosch 400s for the new Team Shock h/w.

6. Off to the US for work week after next...dont bother asking shopping basket already full from robot marketplace. Can resist a little robot $ spend !

Anyway TGIF. Cheers Ian

PS appreciate any HEAVWIEGHT teams responding to A123 post and can just recommend which Chinese supplier to go for !

Ripper has now finished it's upgrades ready for the demo tomorrow, think it's finally going to blow itself apart !

Ian, might be interested in some a123's if your getting some and I need to save some weight before the next uk champs and will need nicads for my new heavy I'm about to start !! Keep me posted as I might tap onto your order and we can maybe get a discount.

Malice boys have some I think !

i might be interested in tagging onto the order too :)

Quote:

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Originally Posted by jonny

i might be interested in tagging onto the order too :)

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same here :)

We were quite pleased with Eruption's performance for a first event, although we have found a few teething issues that need to be sorted:

Adding a skid - During the Saturday shows, it tipped back while driving making it practically impossible to get under anything. For the Sunday shows we managed to create a temporary skid, which made it work a lot better. This however is not a temporary solution, and we need to make a hardox skid of the same style before the next event.

Re-routing the bungee cords - The bungee cords which we used to pull down the flipper were fastened towards the front of the robot, which we believed to be not a problem. After testing though, we realised that they did not pull down the flipper arm with sufficient force and leaving it not fully closed. We are going to re-route them so that they pull the flipper arm straight downwards, which we believe to be a better method.

Anti-balance device - We discovered during the Worthing event that the robot balanced perfectly on it's lower back panel. This is obviously a major problem as it leaves the robot stranded (and in worse cases immobilized). We need to find a way to stop it from resting there. We a currently un-decided on how to do this, although we are thinking of using ballast in the front end of the robot to tip it down, as we have approximately 10kg to spare.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by ian_thomas

ps any HEAVWIEGHT teams responding to A123 post and can just recommend which Chinese supplier to go for !

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I did reply, I didn't think £6.60 per cell from uk was a bad price, ive ordered them from china and they are unreliabale with delivery. I also only bought them in 12's as its too much if it gets lost, didn't want to get
stung with import tax either :wink:

Sorted out Tron (the boring box :uhoh: )
One of the pins from the gearbox had come loose and jammed the motor and then blown one side of the Wotty. changed another motor and gearbox as well all OK. I'm looking for some 9.6v or 12v drill motors if anyone has any.
Work on Seraph had to make another angle bracket for the hub cap spike, after being run over by Major Damage and then the RL floor flipper it broke!
Still waiting on some parts for Saint, Cherub will need a bit of welding but nothing much. Will order some more split links!

This thread needs renaming roboteers diary !! Interesting though !!

Didn't test rippers new gas system at the robot party as it was raining outside, so just did my usual trick of terrorising kids in the village hall with it driving around.

Will be tested on Monday morning now and then next weeks mission is some TLC for Matilda, Smidsy, finish the etek powered gokart im
Building for a school project, and carry on collecting bits for Mincer my new heavy !!

I forgot also got to put a dip tube in the gas bottle

First part done.Broken anderson found and replaced.

Well, just needed to sort out a valve on dtk before Portsmouth so did it yesterday. Today I get a phone call at work saying that my dad's just put the battery fire out :angry:

At least one pack gone because of a short on the balance leads.

Will see what the damage is tomorrow but I suspect it'll be re-wired before the next event

Well, ripper is now tried and tested.... its the most explosive it has ever been !! Chuffed.
I suspect it will blow itself apart, but not happy unless im pushing limits and trying new ideas. !!

Nearly ready to start building the new Heavy now !! Just a few more bits to collect !

Victor regulator fitted and nice new pipes courtesy of Pirtek.

New fittings and pipes to go in on the low pressure side, gyro to put in,dip tube to make,new paint job and we are ready to go again :D

A quick run out at Portsmouth and then we are ready for Kidderminster.

Still haven't got round to sorting out Maelstrom for Portsmouth it's on the to do list along with a couple of battleratz, ants and tidying the workshop before dad gets back from his holiday/ work :rofl:

Not much else to report- the new heavyweight is progressing slowly- got one gearbox made but we've had to go back to the drawing board with the design to make it more compact as current predictions put us overweight.

Probably charge 540 and hopefully get my dx3r fixed...

John make the new ripper mahoosive? Like it should be!

LoL I know it should be, Ive still got the old Ti shell, can't bring myself to cut it up !!

The new one I'm building is something completely different, a nice full pressure axe with a difference !!

Not going to get time till Xmas now as I'm working in London mon - wed for 10 Weeks for Sky Tv. Boo hoo :(

Quote:

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Originally Posted by cliveb

A quick run out at Portsmouth and then we are ready for Kidderminster.

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Been thinking about this part,when does Alex ever take it easy? :proud:

I have been making a robot for Toby he wanted to make a robot so I made this mock-up with Mark doing the body for it.


http://i569.photobucket.com/albums/s...s/IMGA5558.jpg

http://i569.photobucket.com/albums/s...s/IMGA5553.jpg


The motors are servo motors they look like servos but are just motors From Technobots
http://i569.photobucket.com/albums/s...s/IMGA5555.jpg


The radio From Technobots is the cheapest going and uses a receiver that has relays fitted. So the unit
works like this Left relay on - turns left. right relay on - turns right. Both on goes forward but no reverse!!
http://i569.photobucket.com/albums/s...s/IMGA5556.jpg


The battery from guess who it has capacity for 3 1.5v AA cells.
http://i569.photobucket.com/albums/s...s/IMGA5557.jpg

Toby did the decoration

Who's doing what before the next event?

At the moment everything,as Alex has gone away for 3 days with his school.I get to work on the robots whilst he goes zip-wiring,laser questing,leap of faithing,3 g swinging,camp fire,disco,den building and quad-biking. :sad: :sad:

[attachment=0:nl14v3fs]chop shop tilly.jpg[/attachment:nl14v3fs]quiet a lot really

working in a chop shop .... :uhoh: :uhoh: :uhoh:

Have you got Tilly XP working Shane?

No Unfortunately Tilly XP was scrapped after the event at the o2

she will be rebuilt next year ....

:lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol:

scrapped eh? :lol:

got any pics of the damage?

Not much damage .......

was just a trialer and the trials went ok .....

So it will now be built with the care and attention required ...

not just thrown together for an event ....

:rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl:

throwing together bits is the best way to build stuff, what are you saying!!!

Thrown together in a rush is what i ment .....

you're more inclined to keep at something if you have a very limited time to do it in :lol:

IT was built and finished for the o2 event

Now it will be built better and stronger .....

:lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: