Featherweight Discs

I have looked through many kinetic energy convertions and have come to the conclusion that speed (of the weapon) is the key to a sucessful featherweight spinner, as featherweights cannot spend to much of their weight, on a disc of much mass. What are the conditions of the possible 1500rpm spinner rule, as this would effect the weapon power of a featherweight spinner ALOT.
I have been pondering over many designs of featherweight, and a high speed disc seems the key to a successsful weapon, without buying a mag or anything :). Please comment-

A very cheap option Ewan might be to look at the deal Argos are doing right now. Its an 18v portable hand held circular saw, and a battery drill thrown in for £29.99 (made by Challenge). In the saw youll have the motor and fittings for your own disk weapon. Its 3200rpm at 18v.
I bought two for £60. I get two 18v drill motors, two nicad packs, two chargers, one ready built disk weapon and a saw to keep for building it!! :)

BMW fan motors 12v 600w
on 24v they do 2400W thats near as damn it 3hp
there made by a sub contractor for wait for it

Lynch

could you provide any more information on that fan motor craigh regarding performance and weight. also what is the shaft type and size?

i think ill have to look at one for a spinner. most fan motors ive found are 240w at 12v.

@ewan. yes you will get more power by making the spinner faster. BUT it will be more unstable and it will have a slower spin up. hence why most people have a good balance between the two.

Thankyou for your ideas. I had a look into the cordless circular saw, but instead I decided a more powerful 24v motor of sorts would do the job. If I could have some more information about that fan, then that would be great.
Im aiming for an 6-10 second spin-up time on a vertical spinner (so that you can push the opponent away while you are spinning up). This would release MAX energy into your opponent at whenever time you hit it.
Cheers, Ewan

have a look at car fan motors. any type. also car heater motors are good but they usually have a thin shaft.

your bound to get at least a 240w at 12v motor and ive seen a 1hp at 12v motor. they have serious power and they often come with a flat plate straight out of the armature with a mounting point for 3x m6s.

they are also real durable. that should do the job for you

Ewan you really should be aiming for a 3 second or less spin up time
Example: say you take 6 secs to spin it takes most featehrs less than 3 secs to cross the arena
then u get flipped rammed or hit with another disc

Glen the motor is approx 110mm dia 70mm tall weights 1.5kg Ill get the specs later thats all I can remember

The bot is using the drill motors that I have used many times before, and they run at 14.4v instead of the nominal 9.6v, this leads to a 20mph speed, which it can get to within 50cm of floor space...
I could run away for about 12 secs at the start of a fight...
Cheers, Ewan

Forget it Ewan.. from the moment a disk gets up to some serious energy levels this robot becomes an unguided/nominaly guided projectile.

Now, as you think a 12kg machine, with a heavy disk on, eating power as wel, that you can escape a dedicated rambot with thesame amount of power invested in the drive as you in drive and weapon...Think again.

And as the power in feathers reaches nominal heavy values, the armour goes up equaly.
The first Hardox armoured feathers are not far away.

Or, every weapon has it time and place.But non are King of the Hill. After Hypnodisk I feared a Spinner dominated RW. But I did my small part, and now we see a Flipper Dominated gamefield in the Mentorn arena.
And Of course, I do not forget Razer as example. Unfortunatly nobody tied a Hydraulic powered weapon in a feather.

I thought Craig danbury did? I also thought i told you that at newark :) hehe

regards
Dave moulds
Team Turbine

I have no reason to believe that you cannot fit two powerful drive motors, and a good weapon into a featherweight. I do agree that a reasonably powerful disc (vertical) on a bot moving at 20mph can be a bit scary, but there is no reason why this cannot be controlled well, my H5 controllers are excellent.
Cheers, Ewan

I would be slightly worries about the H5s, or the motors holding up. I know H5s are very conservatively rated at 10A, but still, using frill motors to go 20 mph whils only drawing 10A would suggest that maybe theyre not as powerful as they could be, and you may find they get rather hot and upset if youre pushing them to the limits as it would seem. I think 15mph max is enough, certainly in the current batch of featherweight arenas, which arnt particularly large (tho were working on rectifying that for FWS2004 :-) Especially with rambots, such as the one Im building, I dont intend to use much more than 25-50% power/speed most of the time, so that the whole thing is jch more controllable and easier to drive and aim at opponents, and then open up the throttle in a storm-esque way once the opponent is on the front. Im working on a featherweight version of the robotec at the moment so that I can program in my own power curves to give me loads of low end control, and then really just a bit of high end welly. As for the hardox feathers, my 4mm hardox is being water-jet cut this week, and im still worried it wont be up to the job of handling Eds new Lem powered feather spinner.

Just to re-iterate whats happened to feathers in the last year, its incredible thinking about it. The weight class has ballooned into a class capable of putting on an excellent show for the public. Weve had the introduction of FeatherWeights.org (plug plug), the 2 excellent inspire events, and of course with the benfit of the heavyweight learning curve, the feathers have come from something like series 2 technology to series 7 in only about 10 months. Its exciting to think what 2004 will bring.

On a more random note, if anyone has yet to get their machines on our featherweight database, and would like to, then please do- its an excellent place for new comers to gain information, inspiration, and for you to gain traffic to your site if you have one :-)

Also, were very nearly full up for FWS2004 9thanks for the great response) so if you havnt yet signed up, please try and do so as soon as possible to avoid dissapointment:-)

Regards,
Eddy
FeatherWeights.org

(note that the H5 can handle around 20 amps continuous, the 10 amps is a minimum rating. And yes I would not be using 20mph all the time, but speed can come as an advantage. anyway back to the point...)
Eds building a bloody f*cking, ass kicking Lem powered spinner. Oh my GOD!!! *quickly phones the hardox store for 11.99kg of the stuff...*
If Ed can put enough power into a Lem at the weight of a featherweight that I will truely praise him as one (if not the) best roboteer of them all. (then again he might be using it at 12v...)

wtf? how can you get 20mph out of 9.6v drills. unless you have nearly 250mm of wheels on them i cant see that happening.

and dont rely on ill just drive out of the way because ill tell you what - it doesnt work :)

No disrespect to Ed intended at all here, but I think it would be going wildly over the top to use that as sufficient justification for the accolade of Best roboteer of them all- Its entirely possible on the face of it, just bloody expensive, and would have to be seriously well built (by a good machinist like Gordon Townley for instance) or on a CNC machine for most of us mere mortals who dont have the skill to operate a machine tool to such a required level. Most of us would do such a thing if we could, but only a few of us have the resources to make such dreams a reality.

Tantrum managed to have a huge weapon and fast drive, but controllable at high speed on both weapon and drive, nope, one or the other Im afraid, once the disk is up to full you must drive slow.

As for spinup time, youll find Ewan that if you are a spinner, every other feather comes straight for you to stop you spinning up, if you can avoid 1, the others will get you. You need to say not more than 3 seconds to a damaging speed, 4 to 5 max for full speed.

Eds putting a LEM in?
sucka fruckin rick rastardly.....
(trantslates to doh!)

a) the motors run at 1100rpm when overvolted on 150mm wheels, this= 19.3mph or so, near enough to 20mph.
b) I simply said ed is the best roboteer ever on one condition, and that is that he can put a lem in a feather at 24v or over and still provide the power, dont think he can though :)
c) I think I may have to work on disc speed, the speed Im aiming for is above 3000rpm, but that means I need a BIG motor for enough torque.
Cheers, Ewan

no dis-respect to ed, put ed manages to create these high power robots (vortex, storm 2 etc) by having the money to pay for it. Why bodge when you can have to profesionally made? Most of us dont have the money, therefore have to bodge!

As far as i know the LEM spinner is just a rumour, I cant see it possible. How do you get a 3Kg motor, strong enough supports, batteries that can last a fight, and supply the current required and then have someway of controling it; all into 12kg? I personally dont see it possible, but hey, prove me wrong!

Just to ask but will the 1500rpm rule come into play at all?
Cheers, Ewan

Im looking forward to see a feather with a big disc motor inside rip itself apart:). After a while im sure this rumored robot will do so if it hit an unmovable object on full power after a bolt or 2 were to shake loose......

regards
Dave moulds
Team Turbine

Unless of course the builder has half a clue and builds a good bot...

Its Ed:)... think of your own ending to this sentance :P

regards
Dave moulds
Team Turbine

And Ed has quite a bit more than half a clue when it comes to spinning featherweights. As for big batteries, not really hugely necessary as the lem wont draw a huge amount once the disc is up to speed- a really efficient big motor like that will probably only need of the order of 5A once the disc is up to speed. Remember that (and this is fairly over simplified) if his disc has, say, a theoretical kinetic energy of 2kJ at its intended speed, and the lem is something around 3kW power, that means its 3 thousand joules per second, and the disc will only need 2 thousand joules of energy put into it. So youve got a motor providing 3000 joules per second trying to give 2 thousand joules of energy into a disc- so the disc will spin up very quickly. Once the disk is up at full speed, only frictional losses will dissipate its energy when its just spinning, so the LEM really has only to keep it topped up with enery- not a partiularly arduous task, so the lem wont be using that much power at all, therefore little current. The only 2 big factors I can see being a pain are simply the fact that LEMs are heavy by featherweight standards, and of course it has to be built stong enough to take the rather massive knocks, but in terms of batteries, they only have to be able to cope with the spin up. Once the disc is cruising, there shouldnt be a huge problem.

Well!
I have Just read through this thread and all I can say is we are all in the seriously deep poo if Ed gets this LEM powered spinner of his up and running.
I speak from 1st hand experience of building LEM powered spinners for heavyweights and that LEM130 is one SERIOUS motor! We use one to drive the disc on our heavy and it is a killer, (If you need evidence, ask Stu, He has seen it used in anger!) Now, if you put that sort of power into a feather the only problem I see is how the hell are you going to hold it down. If we assume that the motor weighs around 3.25Kg add say 3Kg for a disc plus 24V worth of battries, 1.3Kg in NmHI or 2Kg for Ni-Cad, then you need a drive system of some discription, maybe another 2Kg Thats around 9.5Kg, leaving 2.5Kg for a chassis capable of holding the impact from the disc and some armour (that last bit is hard enough in a heavy, let alone a feather!) Good luck Ed, I would love to see it!
Ewan, yes its possable to build a feather with a powerful, nimble and quick drive train plus a very respectable 4500 RPM 2.5 Kg vertical disc, we have! Mind you, to get it to drive anywhere near as good as we wanted took 4 years of heavyweight building experence and a top of the line programable Vantec speed controller! (Sorry, that makes an H5 look like a toy!) Even then we still have problems sometimes making tight turns with the disc at full chat due to the giroscopic effect. The whole machine can tip over at about 45 degrees before slowly comming back down! (you canna change the laws of physics Jim!!) The point Im to make here is that spinners be they heavy or feather weight are not as easy to get right as some people think, even a featherweight one can be leathal and I do mean LEATHAL if not properly built. I Have been in a workshop with a heavyweight robot when a blade weighing only about 1/2KG parted company with a disc spinning at 5000 RPM Fortunatly it landed inside the robot but the damage was horrendus and I was scared s**tless! So, to all you guys out there, keep building those spinners but PLEASE, PLEASE be careful and if in any doubt get it checked by someone who knows what they are looking at!

I wish everyone a very Happy New Year and productive but above all SAFE roboteering,
Geoff,
Team Scorpion.

Ok its time to put the cat among the pigeons.

When considering the rate of improvement in feathers, it is possible to envisage a need for 2 classes at some point in the future.

How about

Class 1. The bodgers
Class 2. The machine toolist/ contract the work out brigade.

Regards

Tim

Sorry, that makes an H5 look like a toy!

Actually the H5 runs rings around a Vantec in terms of handling - what do you think is at the heart of Storm II, H5 technology :)

Having used Vantecs for all our previous robots, H5 knocks the spots off it !

:)

Ed
http://www.stormrobot.comhttp://www.stormrobot.com

Ok Ed, maybe that statment was a bit strong, sorry. But I like my Vantec!
In the interests of a fair comparison, please may I be really cheeky and ask if I can have a little drive of Storm II at some point? :)
That said, sorry Ed, but I still cant quite see how you are going to get that LEM in a feather!! But I admit I will be seriously impressed (and worried!)if you do! :)
Geoff.

There seem to be all sorts of rumors circulating regaring what were up to Geoff !

Suffice to say that I do have a spare LEM and nothing to do with it..... and I do have a CAD model of a LEM powered feather spinner though.

Ed
http://www.stormrobot.comhttp://www.stormrobot.com

im not scared..... ill fight anything !!!!!! you know me :)

My 160kw Truck motor powered at 8 million volts new feather will take anything on, yes its 12kg aswell.
And runs upside down, and is made of plactic, and also is painted pink.

CCCOOOMMMMMEEEE OOOONNNNN !

jonno :)

go jonno u big brave man u..

want some pink furr for that Jonno i hear Stus got some spare :P

Hey, I never said I was building one !

If I said I was putting an ETEK into a feather someone.... somewhere would believe it :sad:

Ed
http://www.stormrobot.comhttp://www.stormrobot.com

Hang on a second Ed,
I distinctly remember a conversation with you at Inspire were the subject of a LEM powered feather called Horizon came up! :)
Granted, you never claimed you were actually in the process of building it. But the implication was that it was on the cards. As there is also a rumour Vortex has now retired, I cant see you sitting there for too long without a feather to play with. Also, knowing what you are like for building fairly radical robots, I mealy put two and two together....! :)
If Im wrong, then Im sorry. But you have to admit, the circumstantial evidence is pretty damn strong!! :)

All joking aside, Have you a link to any info on those H5 controllers?..If they are as good as you claim the least I can do is take a look! :)

Take care,
Geoff

yeah pink furr..... coooooool.

stu, i want you ! :)

jonno u sound gay stop it.

Ive also said we are building a feather (2 Actually). A flipper with a 100mm bore ram & and Axe with a 63mm bore ram. The first reaction I get from people is that€™s way over the top and they dont stop and think. The fact is it only has a stroke of 25mm and 50mm and the linkage gives it far more stroke. As Ed has just found out you mention something and people jump to their own conclusions (usually wrong), exaggerate it and tell everyone without find out the facts first. Come to think of it that€™s what€™s happening with the TV stuff. If everyone here says that it€™s not going to continue eventually more people will believe it and give up. Unless you know for sure DONT say anything about it, it will only damage the sport further and cause more people to give it up.

(Had a bad day at work)

Yeah can see Mark - but fully agree.
Maybe you should have more bad days at work? :proud:

Oww Jonno - im taken mate :sad:

Mr Stu
- Walks over to Mikeys house -

Its not a bad thing that Ed
People beleive when u say Im building a lem powered disc on a feather because if anyones got the gall to do it you have.
Like when I said I had 2 eteks for drive people thought I was lying and low and behold I turn up with 2 eteks.
Not many of us can claim we had an idea for a robot our dream bot and 4 months later there it sits exactly how we imagened it.

You thought to yourself whats my dream robot and you built it. How much it cost and how it got there is NOT the point the point is its there all we need to know is its within the rules and it works
Ive always thought of you as a guy who doesnt really care what ppl think about his robots because you know your robot will do what its supposed too. Mimicary is the greatest form of flattery just walk round the pits at Robot wars this year and see how many robots have come out like yours
heres a link to a robot like yours http://www.tantorobot.comwww.tantorobot.com I may bark like a dog of how much Tanto is better than strom 2 but lets face it its just a copy

take 5 deep breath and just breathe

and relax

Well put Craig,
I think we need to take a step back and realise that we are getting dangerously close to loosing sight of one of main reasons we all got into this crazy hobby in the first place....FUN!
Yes, I may post the odd bit here and there with the intention of provoking an on-going discusion, but it is all done in good humour and NEVER with any disrespect to people involved.(A point that seems lost on some people)
Does it really matter if Ed has or hasnt built this machine?
If he hasnt...Then good on him for starting, and mantaining, the best wind-up on everyone (me included!) I have seen in a long time!
If he has...Then he has my respect for being able to design and build something that I know I couldnt!
Either way Its not worth the stress this subject seems to be causing, so I for one will say no more on it! :sad:

No Disrespect to ED but the man is sponsered Mega Mega Mega bucks (talked to a guy who knows him very very very well). If ed wants he does not have to do anything to build his robots. All he has to do is do up a cad and get it all custom machined and it dont cost him a penny (sponsers pay it all)

Anyone who is skilled on CAD and has a sponser could build/buy (change where appropriate) a robot much easier than most of us bodgers.