Heavyweight motor/gearbox question

Hello. You know how for building feathers etc. there are motor solutions available such as Gimson's, drill motor gearboxes etc? I wondered if there were similar pre-built options for heavyweights. So far, my ravings have stumbled upon butchering up an electric wheelchair, and on the Robot Market Place I found T-64's which seem to come as an incredibly expensive option.

Does anyone have any other suggestions as to cheap and pre-built locomotion ideas that I can bolt onto a planned heavyweight. Obviously I know with hardly any building skills I'm not going to win anything but fancied a go all the same.

Wheelchair motors are your best bet then.

Otherwise you're thinking about asking others to build you a set of gearboxes.

And cheap... Depends on motors and used materials.

there are these

http://users.breathe.com/planteng/axles.htm

but you have to buy 2 axles at £60 each and and pay £25 to get them modified

Struth that websites been going yonks I didn't realise you could still buy off him!!

That's cool, I'll bear him in mind. He always used to seemed a good laugh when they interviewed him on the telly, from Somerset I think?

Almost certain Roger isn't about anymore.

http://www.robotmarketplace.com/product ... TMODA.html

Not a bad option if you go for the 1hp ampflow motor, $200 a piece is pretty decent value for what you get.

Or you could go down the route of gearing using chain and sprocket. Not too tricky if you use standard bearing blocks and shafts

That's pretty cool. finding an old wheelchair is the favourite at the minute lol.

Your other option would be to use a ready made gearbox. Plenty available on ebay.

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Belle-Cement- ... 337f204f5b

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/25-1-MCP-4-Ge ... 19c9478c8f

Just search for gearbox in business, office and industrial

That's cool, I didn't realise gearboxes and premade stuff was as ready available in the bigger sizes like it is.

Got something similar but its geared 1:80 so they're probably be a bit too slow. Its not light at about 950gr but at least they're all metal and look sturdy enough.
Bought them for a project which never saw light - but who knows!

http://i8.photobucket.com/albums/a49...ps975e7575.jpg

they look like the real mccoy!

Those ones are available on ebay as well with a selectable ratio

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/TNRV050-Input ... 3a66a7954f

It's sort of dawning on me how on the ball I am gonna have to be building a heavy weight. I was ready put my cash into building a serious featherweight but really fancy a shot at a heavyweight instead lol.

well...actually the plan originally was build a featherweight from plastic and roberts your mothers brother. But after a crate of hdpe etc and various builds I wasn't happy with the way it flexed. So then I've been building a daft robot out of a roasting dish and bits of angle / steel plate and i've ended up having to buy metal cutting and drilling gear anyway. So now since I've gotten this far, I keep watching the heavy weight stuff on youtube and thinking I want a go at that. Would your advice be build another feather or two first and then have a go or would you advise getting stuck in?

Have you competed with any of your featherweight efforts? If not, it might be wise to do so, get your sea legs as it were, and decide from there. You may be completely satisfied with the more intense and lighter machines.

Good point lol, no I haven't. Yeah, I'll finish the roasting dish off and come to some events and take it from there lol. Sorry for the stupid questions.

I think you should go for a really competitive feather. They are much cheaper, parts easier to find and they are easier to build. And for what i see here in the forum, feathers seem to have more competitors. You could also build a beetle, since many people are building them and as it is a new class, there is still much for everyone to learn and create.

Yeah, gonna have a go at building something to give featherweight spinners a hard time, as there what I'm most scared of.

http://www.robotcombat.com/images/breakerbox.jpg

Breaker Box, the so called spinner killer, super simple design but effective. Built by Jim Smentowski who was all about really big vertical spinners (Backlash/Nightmare), so he must know what it take to take care of one. :lol:

One of the secrets is to drive well, trying to only get hit on the biig Ti scoop and get on the side of spinners. So, practice alot your driving.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eYr2-1eAkd4

Hope this helps, i would love to see some one build a robot that scares spinners.

Sadly I think the best bot to defend against spinners is the standard wedge. In fact a really shallow pyramid shape bot, that simply deflects every hit from all angles, would probably survive the longest. Possibly even a low dome shape. Of course, that's boring.

Something that has a long shallow wedge leading to a grabber of some sort, so that you can deflect hits and when the time comes grab your opponent and get rid of them, would possibly give the best results. You don't need particularly fancy stuff to get enough power to grab a machine.

Then again all designs have pros and cons, that's why there is so much diversity.

Yeah, I have a couple of ideas already that I think will be pretty good. I think like you point out, the secret is deflecting the blade.

Edit: watching that video reminds me of La Machine, it's the same sort of idea

Yap, i forgot about a shallow dome, no corners at all!

Breaker Box isn't a wedge/plow, that thing is a lifter and it as lots of power. In one video, to celebrate the victoty, Jim goes full power with the lifter and the robot balances on the plow and the body spins like crazy.
In my opinion, he only lost against SwerSnake because he didn't have time to fully charge the battery, as you can see at the end of the fight, he was dominating the snake.

Yeah I know it's technically not a wedge etc, I meant the shape of the blade it presents to the enemy. I've watched a lot of Breaker Box, especially in a lot of the Combots videos.

Nom nom nom. Now that i'm running boners drum so close to the ground that the teeth clash with some of the slightly uneven plates in the robochallenge arena there aren't many wedge designs that could get the better of the drum. Good luck trying to break a spinner. Generally you are just waiting for them to break themselves.

Why not Fight spinners with a spinner? ;-)

haha thats cool, not many things will beat a good spinner

Edit: I think there are better ways to beat a spinner than a wedge

A wedge was good for me against spinners, it was hard goin against those pesky flippers though

I think you need something to stick in the blade

I'd say a proper wedge will get under any type of spinner, be it a drum or a disk

https://fbcdn-sphotos-b-a.akamaihd.n...65739374_o.jpg

and if the wedge is a flipper as well, that's even better! :lol:

https://fbcdn-sphotos-c-a.akamaihd.n...90314864_o.jpg

Pity I'm so far away...we could easily check that out! :wink:

Is that a brushless drive on that machine in the air?

Yes it's brushless...don't know exactly what they use but its pretty fast and cool

Its a good mean machine which gave the most damage to the rest of the competitors - but I think over head bar spinners are vulnerable to wedges like ours, as it couldn't make contact - in-fact we had two battles which we both won in just a couple of seconds and without a scratch

They look like scorpion motors. I'd be interested to know what speedo they use. What's the machine called?

Its called Pacman... I'll ask around to see what's inside it - my brother and Pacman's builders went to university together. If I could get someone of them to post here would be even better!

Btw, its possible that Will Thomas had a peek inside it at the pits while he was at the event.

These are the only photos I found

https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set ... 242&type=1