Dutch Beetleweight

I'm currently looking into building a beetleweight.

I've set my eyes on using a pneumatic cylinder, a 1/8" 3/2 valve and a small compressor.
I have it lying around in working order and weighs in at around 800grams.

After adding up all the weights from the other components it leaves me just about 150 to 200 grams for the chassis/armour and all the bolts.

Some say the best defence is a strong offence but I fear that I'm pushing that statement too far.
Because if I push through my idea/design I'll end up with a half armoured 20kg tossing machine.

Any thoughts and ideas would be appreciated.

What other bits you using? I managed to squeeze a 500g weapon motor into Headbanger and got 10mm HDPE sides, 2mm carbon fibre main panels and a 1mm Ti scoop into the design, so I think you can get some reasonable armour if you make it as small as you can.

1x 852 grams pneumatics
2x 79 grams 1200rpm motors
4x 9 grams botbits 10amp esc's (will order these once the chasis looks like it will work)
---> 2x engines, 1x compressor and 1 to power the valve since they way less than a switch.
1x 17 grams rx (orange r800x to be linked to my dx5e)
1x 60 grams estimate flipperarm (6mm hdpe vertically mounted)
1x 75 grams 850Mah 3s lipo pack (will order this later on)

Which leaves me. roughly 300grams to work with for the chassis, wheels, link, wiring, led, bolts and screws.

First order of business is to create a heated wire to fold the 6mm hdpe into a onepiece chasis.
I managed to design one that would stay under 200 grams and would offer maximum protection one can expect 6mm hdpe to give but selfrighting would be near impossible in this stage.

Turns out I won't be building a pneumatic flipper beetleweight. After spending 4 hrs bending 6mm hdpe in to the desired shape using a soldering iron with a large rod inserted to heat lengths evenly to bend it I mounted the pneumatics in it. Wired everything up and testfired it using a roll of ducttape.

The ducttape flew over 7 feet and I was pleased with that. Even cocky it would appear...

Tested it again using my featherweight to see how much power was in it and offcourse I didn't have a camera present.
In 2 glorious seconds I tossed the featherweight aside, snapped the flipperarm and the chassis in 3 different spots.

Apparently, heating and bending makes the hdpe too brittle to stand up against the force of the pneumatics and makes we worry about it's capabilities to withstand your spinners.

Would have made a great video....

So back to the drawing board and get decided on an axe, lifter or spinner...

1.2-1.4mm titanium weighs the same as 6mm HDPE, and will make for a very lightweight and sturdy frame, if optimised for strength in the areas you need it. I would always expect trying to flip a feather with a beetle to end in disaster, I can't see how you could possibly be in a situation in a beetle fight to need to hoist that much. Would be a real shame, with such a powerful sounding setup, to not put it into action!

edit: also, are you building to the "standard" 1.36kg or the UK beetle event holder Bigconkers' 1.5kg class? Most of us are working to 1.5kg over here, it makes things that little bit more possible.

I was building towards the 1.5kg limit.

Titanium sounds nice and all but I have no real knowledge of working it/with it.

It cuts nicely enough with a hacksaw or a grinder, and tidies up with files quite quickly too. It's very springy, but relatively soft, so it's not too unpleasant to work. I am unsure on bending it, though. I imagine you need to radius the bends quite a lot to prevent fatigue and a snap. Just wanted to present it as an option for the bits that failed (flipper arm for example).

Had some luck with the wheels i got, found some extra weight to use so i'll give it another go later today or tomorrow if the misses permits it. I am stuck with the kids for the moment but that does give me the time to redraw my plans.

I found some time to work this evening.
I think the hose is leaking a little for the pressure is lower then normal. Used to be 180lb/in and is now stuck at 110lb/in which makes a huge difference since i'm using the hose as a buffer...

Anyways, here's the new frame (first part of it)

http://youtu.be/ab9vvoOt5Js

Video doesn't play... must be a youtube glitch...

Upon closer inspection the hose has dried up in several places and I don't feel like spending extra money to pursue this idea any further. I'll keep it around as a project worth revisiting at a later stage or if I ever come across an air cilinder half the size of this one. For there is just not enough wiggle room to get some armour on it.

Don't worry about it too much, there will be a beetle weight since i did order the botbitz 10amp esc's recently, just not a flipper.

It doesn't look like much and it has virtually no straight angles to it but it does make a nice test version of what I want to build.

Attachment 4367

Will be an electric lifter once done

Plans changed again, discarded the previous design and spend nearly 4 hours, 8 sigarettes, 3 beers and dozens of pushes to my 1 year old daughter on the swingset to cut up a handsaw with a hacksaw.

Made a nice puzzle out of it with five part that will go on the new design.
2 wheelguards, 2 linings and a scoop are made out of one handsaw and only the scoop isn't serrated.

Might call the beetle "Jagged" because of this.
Will do some more work on it later this evening and take some pictures

After spending hours pondering what I could do I decided te go the easy way.
Nothing too fancy, just some hdpe sides, bottom and backbone.

After two hours, the motors are mounted, the solenoids are in place and one of the sides has been made.
I still have 400grams to work with now but that will be rather tight I fear.

I hope to find the time to spend another evening in the shed tomorrow.

Sounds great stuff. Got some more pictures?

I will eventually

Attachment 4634Attachment 4635

I made new sides and threaded the wheels using some bicycle tire

and a pic of the other components:

Attachment 4636

Holy crap that's thick Hdpe, looking good though, interesting to see something slightly different from the norm.

Just 20mm. I'll drill some airpockets into it if needed later on.

20mm is thicker than my first feather aha, out of interest how powerful a flip are you expecting the solenoids to have? will it be a quick turn over or more like a conventional gas powered flip?

The combined 'power' of the solenoids is 9kg which will be diluted by the length of the flipper.
I reckon it will make a fast lifter when it engages an enemy and a quick selfrighter.

Will have to finish the build and wire it up to find out.

What safety measures does a beetle need?

I'll add a link offcourse but i'm not sure about an led. Will the lights in my receiver (which will be in the open waiting for an axe to crush it) be sufficient?

If its built following the fra rules then look at them

Surely it's not difficult to have an actual LED so you don't have to put your RX in harms way so that people can see the light.

You can use something like this: http://www.technobotsonline.com/easy...-lighting.html OR http://www.technobotsonline.com/sine...-lighting.html

They are not cheap but they are a quick and effective way of getting your required power light.

It was more a matter of wanting an orange light and the rx is orange.
Got some red led's already and did find a guy in france who sells orange ones.

Just wanted to keep things simple

Thanks for the link Alex

Spend another few hours on my beetle:

Attachment 4645

That's the good news.

This is the bad news:

http://youtu.be/X5Ib0whF8Rw

It's no wonder I couldn't find a single beetle out there using solenoids, They produce not enough power or weigh too much to make a decent weapon setup. The 10mm stroke in which they get stronger in the end didn't help as well.

I'm going to donate the solenoids to the ant arena here in holland and will need to come up with something else in the next two weeks... already bought the plane tickets for the AWS...

on a second thought, I might use the solenoids to launch a toy axe or mallet... I still have some grams left to have fun with.

to be continued...

Decided to drop by the thriftstore after work since it's on my route home.
Wanted to find some kind of toy weapon or something related to mount as an axe.

I found something completely different but way cooler than I ever expected:

Attachment 4648

Two meatcleaverlike cheeseknifes for 30cts weighing 27grams each.
With the components placed inside I still have 12 grams left so it needs a little diet.

and in action:

http://youtu.be/lBnFftBpYtE

Little black robot with an axe? yepp i approve

Dude! That little cleaver is so damn cute! Top man :)

Does it have a name yet?

was thinking along the lines of "The Butcher" since the arena is called "The Slaughterhouse"

How about " Swedish Chef " ? http://img2.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb2...dish_poser.jpg

I'll pass :roll:

Hatchet

sounds a little familiar

'Hatchet' is taken by a Featherweight.

I'm confident Leo was aware of that and just said it to rile up MrSam.
I almost wanted to retort with the name obsidian but I'm not sure it still is within the RCC ranks.

No offense taken btw i imagine it was just a bit of harmless banter, but yes Hatchet is taken for a feather but i don't have any objections to it being used in another weight class.

Chop Suey :)

Very cool design, look forward to seeing it fight :)