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To echo what others have said, that is a great effort for a first build, well done. Using a piece of velcro to hold the link/fuse in place is fine; I always put a piece of duct tape over the link hole on my feather to keep it in place.
As for securing the link/fuse mount so it doesn't disappear into the robot, I'll be honest that is something that has never crossed my mind. I haven't done beetles for a few years but on both of mine, the link mount just sits slightly loose in a section of the robot, with the link hanging out slightly (and with a cable tie on) so that it can be easily grabbed.
Could always attach something to your fuse (a piece of string etc) so that even if the holder ends up further in the robot, the fuse can still be gotten to courtesy of the string.
Best of luck with it, and see you at Edinburgh!
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In my Beetleweight robots, I have been known to glue down my removable links to the body but in The Honey Badger, I clamped it down with a small cut of polycarbonate. The XT60 connector in that needs renewing, it is quite loose and quite old. Larger weight classes, I use a bolt between the two wires and a oversized washer to hold it in place.
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It looks like a great well thought out first build!! 3mm aluminum (grade dependendant) will hold up well in beetleweights but I wouldnt expect it to last more than an event, maybe two at a strech. Steel is heavy on beetles, a few bots use HARDOX steel wedges however titanium (grade5+) is a very common wedge material. HDPE wedges have seen some success in the beetle classes aswell. If the robot feels sluggish then, presuming those are 12v 1000rpm motors, running them on 3s or even 4s (with approproate escs) gives those motors a huge burst in power.
Wish you luck in scotland!!
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Looking forward to seeing it in Edinburgh! I second the cable-tie around the link, my link housing is a couple of cable ties so it makes it easy to find the link when it disappears inside the robot.
Off the top of my head, when you're in the pits you might need some sort of locking bar for the weapon to make sure that it physically can't move, and you should also have a cradle so that the wheels of the bot are off the ground.
My cradle isn't too fancy, just a couple of bits of wood screwed together. However I did hear there might be an award for best cradle at this event :D
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That's great. Thank you all for the advice and encouragement. Now you mention it I recall the need for a cradle and will get on the case although unlikely to win any prizes! Similarly, it should be easy enough to drill a locking bar through the lifting mechanism. We have a lipo bag for charging and will bring a few tools and some spare parts too.
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So on Saturday we took Landslide to compete in our first event at the Battle in the 'burgh in Edinburgh. Whilst my better half was enjoying the sights the kids and I spent the whole day at the event and had an absolute blast! Thanks so much to all the brilliant, helpful and friendly folks we met there and to the organisers for running such a great event. We managed to win our first ever fight, more by luck than judgement I feel, but never the less took some really big hits and managed to keep going long enough to claim a victory which I guess is part of the game. In round two it was pretty clear that we were mightily outclassed by another big spinner and an awesome piece of robot engineering in 'Night fury' and that our brittle chopping board armour wasn't going to cut the mustard. However, we survived more hits than expected, even without our wedge which was too badly mangled in the first battle. The fact that we kept going as long as we did was very gratifying. Damage was fortunately confined to non-essential parts and we managed to rebuild (mostly) to get back in the arena for a friendly later on so that my eldest got a brief drive with some other non-spinners. Overall we were really chuffed that we took part and that the robot worked as intended. Witnessing the rest of the battles over the day was terrific and really inspiring. Hopefully we'll make it to another one next year!
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Hi Dave, Landslide was a really impressive first time build, it just kept going! HDPE instead of chopping boards and I think it'll be lasting the full 3 minutes with spinners :)
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Well done on your first event! I was watching the live stream and recognised Landslide when it came up - I won't deny, I had a bad feeling about how it was going to go but you did brilliantly! Very impressive.
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Thanks both. We certainly learnt an awful lot. The power in some of the spinners is pretty scary,not to mention the air raid siren of doom!