feather weight help prototype

Hey guys and girls, I'm new to the fighting robot scene, I was a huge fan of robot wars when I was younger and I thought why not give it ago, so here I am, well as u can see from the title I'm building a feather weight, and well I'm just building a prototype ATM the old fashion way out of MDF and bit I find, I got a problem at hand at the moment iv gone for cordless drill motors and the motors I have are 12v 14.4v and 16.2v and all the kogs have different number of teeth on them, I got all the kogs out the drill heads (never know might need them) but my problem is I don't have 2 the same voltage, I was wondering if someone could help me out, any advice and tips would be great and before I forget I'm building a flipper robot,
Looking forward to you replys guys

What sort of drill motors are you using - do they have the gearboxes attached, or is it just the motor? If it's just the motor on its own, it won't have the power to drive. The best thing to do would be to buy two argos drill motors and hack them (plenty of guides on the net) into drive motors, or buy some Gimsons Robotics GR02 gearmotors that are ready to go, but at a bit higher cost. Likewise, I'd have two motors that run on the same voltage, makes things a lot easier and you'll run into problems using, say, a 12v and a 16v motor at once for drive.

Basic shopping list for you (Sorry if you already know this)

You'll want a pair of ESCs, I recommend the Turnigy TZ-85As from BotBitz, about £100 but they're extremely good

A radio set (receiver and transmitter) - 2.4GHZ, will need to failsafe - I'd recommend a Spektrum or Orange RX, but there's alternatives to either of those

A battery/charger - most roboteers go for LiPos, but it might be that you don't feel comfortable using these straight off, NIMH Model batteries are also usable (there's a big list of usable chemistries in the build rules)

Wheels - these can be made from scratch, or bought - I used some 75mm caster wheels mounted to drill motors for my first machine, but you can also buy wheels that are directly made to mount to drive motors. This all depends on your drive system, of course

Armour - this all depends on what you can get your hands on - to start with, MDF is fine for prototyping, but you'll likely want something stronger, like HDPE or steel. Again, it's all dependant on your design, but weak materials will prove extremely problematic in the arena.


As for your weapon, I have literally no idea how to do pneumatic flippers, so you'd be best consulting the build diaries thread and reading up on any machines that have flippers in them to see how they've done it - sorry about that one!

Best of luck with your build!

Yea I have just motors and all the gears that came out the chuck heads, one if them was he of those £14 from b&q so might just go grab another one off those and take that apart, for wheels I might just make my own and for armor im not sure where to get HDPE from, and the flipper system I'm making my own, I'm doing trials with 2 liter pop bottles and push bike pumps as rams.

First... Welcome!

Second... I'm afraid that Flag as jumped the gun.

As you say you were a fan of robotwars when you were younger, same as me. But RW is nothing like todays events.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k_zDLNbwK3k

That is the most recent championships. Take the lethality of Robotwars as it was 10 years ago and quadruple it, and then quadruple it again. I would seriously advise getting up to speed with the current materials, parts and designs before you start planning your own machine. Yes, you can go out and buy a load of parts and build a machine but chances are it wont last very long and you wont learn very much from it.

My advice... Read the build diarys, find a machine you like and watch all of its fights, see if you can work out how it does what it does. A core understanding of what makes these machine what they are today will set you on the right path.

Planning is everything IMO, learn everything you can then your machine will be the best it can be. Fight with it, learn more and then improve it! And repeat. Good luck!

(Flippers to watch: Explosion, Beauty 2, Little Flipper 3... they will give you a good idea of a modern flipper!)

Thank you eventorizon, the main reason I'm doing prototypes is so I can get a better understanding of things instead of jumping in the deep end and building a arena ready bot, the flipper that inspired me was chaos 2 so you can see how long its been lol, I'm doing research as we speak :-) but I wanna say thank for all ur advice

Yeah, I probably should have mentioned that as well... Made a bit of an idiot of myself there D:
The parts I described should get you a moving machine but as above, you'll definitely need to know what you're up against - someone once said to me that to make an almost completely spinner-proof box you'll be looking at about 8mm mild steel? Not sure how accurate that is, but I'd guess that's a fair old estimate.

Planning is definitely key, make sure you plan it relentlessly before you spend tons on it, and read the build diaries! I've taken a lot of help from there to build my machine, and building on tried and tested methods can't harm.

So what's the average dimensions for a feather weight these days then? I'm taking all your advice in, writing it down so I have it to had.

Attachment 4236

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heres the motors

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Originally Posted by spammy

So what's the average dimensions for a feather weight these days then? I'm taking all your advice in, writing it down so I have it to had.

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I admit this is not really helpful, but i dont think there really is an average size.

There are some very small feathers which you can hold just using your wrist, then there are some feathers you can just about get under your arm. One of mine for example is nearly as big as my heavyweight Dystopia

https://fbcdn-sphotos-a-a.akamaihd.n...67041653_n.jpg

Really what it all comes down to is what its made of, and whats inside it.

If its a flipper with a Full pressure system, its going to be smaller than a rambot. Simply because the rambot can use the systems weight to add size.

Similarly if you make one robot out of plastic, and another out of steel. Then if they are the same weight then normally the plastic ones bigger than the steel one.

Best thing to do, is get your components and weight them. Then choose your material, and you should then be able to calculate the maximum volume that robot can take up. Make sure you can fit everything inside that volume, and bingo.

Others can tell you a size to aim for (as i say mines massive), but if you give us an idea what material you want to use then im sure people could tell you a good size :)

Hey Sam

Having seen that picture of yours, I must say you've gone too far with the motors. If you run drill motors as drives, you need the whole gearbox in place, like this:

http://i46.photobucket.com/albums/f1..._motor_550.jpg

You can buy wheels that will thread directly onto the output shaft.

I would suggest finding a MATCHING pair of drill motors, and if they have all metal gears, that would be better (stripping gears is going to be a pain in your rear end otherwise).

Ahhhh sugar, looks like a new pair of motors, I stripped my completely down, where can I find cheap cordless drills to stripe down? And looking at my prototype I think its on the large side lol

Argos/B&Q are the most popular. I'm told Argos are the better because they have metal gears in them (though I can't verify that) and they're usually only about £15 each.

Here's a simple guide from Youtube on how to hack the gearbox and attach a wheel too, you might find it handy.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8_kWYewQmV0

Looks like a trip to Argos tomorrow lol, and yea the b&q ones have plastic gears in them, I think I took them apart because I seen pics of them with out the gear boxes on

See, I have the B&Q ones because they're slightly cheaper, but by happy coincidence I actually had the right sized metal gears for them so I just swapped them over. I've heard a few times the Argos ones have metal gears in them - make sure you go for the 12v ones if that's the route you're taking for the drive, they shouldn't be much over £15.

Would it be safe to use the battery out the drills to power the bot?

I used them at a point, they seem safe enough but they're not very good, low quality as you'd expect for that sort of price - for a competitive machine you're much better off going for proper model RC batteries.

The shopping list is getting bigger lol, matt I see ur from Sheffield, I'm only from worksop :-)

If you're willing to travel, the House of Chaos is a welcome haven for roboteers. A workshop, raw materials combined with good food and drinks...

Where is the Maddox?

Attachment 4240Attachment 4241Ok so this what my prototype looks like at the moment I know its not much, but I'm taking it steady and doing research at the same time, I know the motor I have mounted is wrong but that's a easy fix and I think I over sized the total size a little but I guess that's the point of prototypes to learn before u go big scale, and yes I am building it in my kitchen its to cold in the shed at the moment lol,

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Originally Posted by spammy

The shopping list is getting bigger lol, matt I see ur from Sheffield, I'm only from worksop :-)

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Ahh, now there's a funny story! I actually go to Worksop a fair bit these days, my girlfriend lives up there! If you ever need anything troubleshooting, I could always make my way over there. I'll be absolutely no help whatoever since I have the engineering abilities of a walrus but a problem shared is a problem divided... I think?

Liking the look of the prototype too, plenty of room for all the pneumatics in there from the looks of things, one thing I would mention about is making sure that the back of the machine isn't flat when you build the real thing, don't want it getting beached on its back trying to self right like the Chaos of old!

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Originally Posted by Flag Captured

Ahh, now there's a funny story!ually go to Worksop a fair bit these days, my girlfriend lives up there! If you ever need anything troubleshooting, I could always make my way over there. I'll be absolutely no help whatoever since I have the engineering abilities of a walrus but a problem shared is a problem divided... I think?

Liking the look of the prototype too, plenty of room for all the pneumatics in there from the looks of things, one thing I would mention about is making sure that the back of the machine isn't flat when you build the real thing, don't want it getting beached on its back trying to self right like the Chaos of old!

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I will have to pop over one day see what one looks like up close, and that would be great :-) I was thinking about rounding the back slightly, but its not flat I don't know if u can tell from the pics buts actually on a slant

So I was ding some digging about at my parents house and came across a box of bits I had when I had my nitro cars
Thought they might come in handy for my prototype
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I also stumbled across this any ideas what it could be? I thought it might be a speed controler i have no clue
Attachment 4262

You are right with the assumption, just some ESC, not a dual controller though. Whether it's suitable for the robots, I'd leave that up to the more professionals to decide, though personally, I'd look for an Amp rating, and seeing if there's any specs online. Only just got into building myself, but had previously bought robots, so I can offer a little bit of advice, but sadly, not loads.

Also, sorry to deviate off topic a bit, but I never knew there was more than a couple people from the Sheffield area on here, I'm quite a bit shocked. And, also, sorry for a bit of a brick of text, and apologies for some other things, I assume.