Been a number of years since I've looked at heavyweights but with Jonnos announcement recently I think it's time to start pricing up a new heavy. So what's the current generally used motors, speedos, batteries etc?
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Been a number of years since I've looked at heavyweights but with Jonnos announcement recently I think it's time to start pricing up a new heavy. So what's the current generally used motors, speedos, batteries etc?
Strange to see a question like that from a veteran like you !
But I would imagine amp flow motors, megawatty and lipo, I don't use the small mags the a28 400 as they go through brushes at very quickly they're in nipper and storm2, mine are a40 300 bit heavier and bigger but cheaper and no worries with brushes.
Feathers are one thing but heavies are a different kettle of fish. Although it seems that tech hasn't moved on quite as fast as it has with the feathers in the last 6 or 7 years since I last looked at them.
Heavies. Biggest change is the batteries.
The affordable HK Zippy LiFePo4's are not uncommon, and some machines are using LiPo's of diverse pedigree.
3.2mm Hardox is very common as armor, as it can take about anything except crushers.
Drives. Bosch 750's are getting out of fashion, due lack of ready replacements.
LEM's ain't what they were. ISKRA is solid, but not common. And we have seen the use of larger "generic Chinese electric scooter motors".
ESC's. Wotties are common.
and so on.
But if we're talking spinners, I can predict the use of large brushless motors.
I was wondering if anyone has looked at a brushless drive system for a heavy?
We looked to the Alienpower 80mm sensored outrunners, but the less than sterling performance René and Nick got from the smaller ones make us reluctant to go that way.
The Hobbyking Rotomax series of motors might be interesting; I have been rebuilding one for a weapon motor and the construction is pretty good. They are not sensored but the internals are so large that it would be very easy to glue in the sensors yourself. For even larger brushless motors, check out http://kellycontroller.com/index.php. they have ESCs that would work with the Rotomax motors and a range of brushless hub motors (as long as you don't mind large diameter wheels)
Hi Gary
you will probably want to make a spinner,
If you don't have much HW stuff about. the cost has got to be about £3-5K. for something that will do. and that's with you doing the work!
That's a lot of money for 1 possibly 2 events. with 2 fight each event (if things don't go well) that's about £1k per fight! there may be a continuation of this in future but there are no guarentees.
OK you might be invited to the USA for a show but there are plenty of teams that have been quietly developing their HW skills with newer tech for the last 10 years, that want to go as well.
I don't want to put you off but if you want to enter the HW scene I would advise some thinking before you are drawn into a costly and possibly disappointing experience.
How about making something that can go to the other events that happen in the UK. Lifter, axle bot, axe or ram bot. you might just find making a competitive (none flipper :)) HW isn't as easy as it once was.
Thanks for the heads up gents.
Craig, I still have a good few heavy bits and pieces kicking around, iskras, a couple large vantecs, a couple eteks, that heavyweight disc, a lot of plate and sheet materials and various other bits and pieces. I guess I was looking to see how up to date or out of date this tech was.
The machine will be a promo machine for my new business (www.plastiprint3d.com). Spending 3k to 5k on a marketing exercise that may get on national tv is pretty much a no brainer.
Time to fire up solid works when I get a spare moment.
The rules on branding/sponsorship are unclear at the moment. Fairly sure it wasn't allowed at the Battlebots filming. Might be difficult to make a promo machine unless you literally call it plastiprint3d.
Good point but then again a single page story in one of the local papers would cost north of £5k (something I have looked into). Whether the logo appears on the machine or not, I just need a hook for various news outlets to want to run the story. Sadly marketing is rarely cheap.
If the machine is called PP3D or something similar then that's easy :)
Good luck Gary looking forward to seeing what you come up with.
Vantec speed controllers are good units, and Etek are good motors too.
Don't forget a build thread here.
Ray Billings is on Facebook and he's always damn helpful so it might be worth talking to him. Mind I think he's the only one mad enough to spend 4 grand each on Last Rites weapon motors!
4 grand on each weapon motor? He uses Eteks at the moment at around $350 a piece.
Last rites/Tombstone is a great machine but technology wise hasn't moved on a lot. It's the reliability of it that makes it work well. It ha an etek on the bar, something like 90-100 A123 cells to power it and and the standard NPC motors and gearboxes bolted straight into a box section frame (he machines one part of the NPC gearbox himself out of aluminium billet rather than using the cast ones for shock purposes.
It was over six months when I last spoke to him, I'll have to sieve through my Facebook messages. I think at the time he was running a Perm at 58v thereabouts.
The Perm motors are 'only' $1,300 unless you are talking about an even larger model than the PMG132. I can't remember if there was ever a Perm in Last Rites but there was definitely some talk about how badly the motor performed in a US heavy; apparently the windings are easily damaged by impact shocks.
Personally, I'd like to see how the brushless Mars motor performs in a heavy; the only time I saw Last Rites up close, Ray was sitting on it and cursing all the broken Etek brushes :).
Someone at BB used a brushless Etek and I don't think it had any issues. The mini etek on RMP looks a very good replacement too, it appears power is very similar. We put brushless in warhead that worked well, although not particularly cheap. And there are other brushless motors that should theoretically work will on the weapon. Kane has played around with brushless drive but not sure how much testing he's done with it.
The brushless drive that Kane had in Mini-Moth was awesome! If he has scaled it up to larger classes successfully, that would be a huge advance in drive technology.
BTW: If you want to know more about Eteks, ask Glen Rose. His day job is building military robots driven by a pair of Eteks - I am totally jealous!
He has made a HW brushless drive recently, although it's worth asking Kane for any details or how well he got it to work. I haven't seen it running yet but it does apparently.