HardWired - Upgrades and general build diary

[Eventorizon]

Take Guilherme and his machine Galactus. Fastest spinning weapon at the champs this year. The brushless setup cost him ~£50 new. Design smart, buy smart.

I thought David and 720 held that record with a theoretical top speed of 12'000 rpm?

I am stunned and impressed by your £60 budget. Conker 1 was built, excluding mistakes, for around £800 and it left the champs on 3 wheels and in 6 pieces.

How much does Hardwired 1 weigh approximately? I am guessing nowhere near the 13.6kg limit.

I reckon you should start on paper. Get the dimensions of the parts you want to use and then do side, front and top views of the internals by hand with a ruler. At 1:1 if you can. That will help you get a proper sense of scale to the machine. From there you can plan how best to pack the items together. What has made my last 2 robots so difficult was that I forgot to plan where I would lay the wires around the machine. The result was a spaghetti that was near impossible to repair when things started blowing up.

If you can, try and angle the corners or lean the armour in slightly, this will help against both vertical and horizontal spinners. Cos that is what everyone is afraid of! Even I am and our team has 2 of them!

Can wait to see those plans!

[PJ-27]

I thought David and 720 held that record with a theoretical top speed of 12'000 rpm?

I believe Guilherme's on paper speed was 13.5K.

[Mouldy]

Galactus is on paper is about 13krpm, 720 in practise is actual 13600rpm

[Flag Captured]

It can be quite disheartening though when you see other machines that have hundreds of pounds spent on them, tools that you simply don't have and engineering skills you'd only obtain from working in the industry. But that isn't the only road to success.

Take Guilherme and his machine Galactus. Fastest spinning weapon at the champs this year. The brushless setup cost him ~£50 new. Design smart, buy smart.

Definitely! Hardwired was made out of the absolute basics, with the absolute basics (minus the joins on the aluminium box, but they were done already) so I'm just going to have to get a bit more creative here and there!
I think the main thing I'm focusing on at the minute is armour - something that can at least stand up to the spinners for some manner of time, because 2mm aluminium... not really got a chance, has it really? I like the idea of a wooden bot with the obvious bonus of wood being generally lighter than steel and what have you so you can have more of it. Not sure how that'll help, but it's something... I really need to do my research and/or actually fight I think first!

Wow, £50 too? That's very impressive - I don't suppose there's a build diary for Galactus anywhere? I'm not feeling comfortable building a full on spinner (yet) but I could definitely use a powerful setup for the lifter on Hardwired, and a lot of the more powerful brushless motors I've seen are pretty expensive, though again it might just be my inexperience there. Brushless might not even be the way to go for lifters, I really don't know! D: Thanks for the advice!

I am stunned and impressed by your £60 budget. Conker 1 was built, excluding mistakes, for around £800 and it left the champs on 3 wheels and in 6 pieces.

How much does Hardwired 1 weigh approximately? I am guessing nowhere near the 13.6kg limit.

I reckon you should start on paper. Get the dimensions of the parts you want to use and then do side, front and top views of the internals by hand with a ruler. At 1:1 if you can. That will help you get a proper sense of scale to the machine. From there you can plan how best to pack the items together. What has made my last 2 robots so difficult was that I forgot to plan where I would lay the wires around the machine. The result was a spaghetti that was near impossible to repair when things started blowing up.

If you can, try and angle the corners or lean the armour in slightly, this will help against both vertical and horizontal spinners. Cos that is what everyone is afraid of! Even I am and our team has 2 of them!

Can wait to see those plans!

Thank you! I think the £60 is only that low because the aluminium box was donated (was scrap) otherwise it'd be up a fair bit I'd think... It's not got proper speed controllers nor batteries in it either - I've reused as much as I could from the two drills, and it runs on servoes which means it's about as easy to maneouver as a small planet...
If I were to make it competitive though, I'll need a lot more than that £60! Rest assured too, if I entered Hardwired in the champs, I'm sure it'd probably come out of the arena as a thin paste... I'm hoping to make something that can be easily repaired to that degree as well for now... I know that's kind of an oxymoron, but I'd love to have a design whereby parts can easily be taken out and replaced if damaged - at least until I get experienced enough to build something that can stand up to the damage better... It's the worry of buying a couple of hundred quid's worth of electrical parts and to have them get broken because of sub-par armour, that's the thing!

And nah, definitely not... It's about 4kg in its current state, but I have just taken a lot out of it, namely the old spinner system on the back that was quite unsuccessful (powered by a small motor and makeshift belt, managed to get about 300 rpm from it at the most...), as well as the extra batteries and scaffolding to go with it - it was much closer to the 9/10kg mark with that in.

Aye, that does sound a very good idea - might crack on with that soon, thinking about it - I want to use the existing HardWired design for now, but I'll get all that sketched out to play around with where everything's going to go. I'm not sure on the actual parts yet though, I want to keep everything cheap but I need upgrades now... Practically building a new machine from scratch, in all honesty. I like the general design at the minute though, so I'll use that as a basis and expand on it, hopefully I'll get somewhere with that! Definitely get some angled armour in there too - that does sound like it'll help a lot! I can't blame them being scared of those spinners though, I mean - the amount of energy stored up in those things must be absolutely incredible!

Thanks, shall get those posted fairly soon-ish!

Galactus is on paper is about 13krpm, 720 in practise is actual 13600rpm

Well, that's me not getting any sleep tonight!
Seriously though, that is insane! No wonder 720 does all its crazy breakdancing moves with that sort of speed! How heavy's the drum on it?

[Max]

Galactus is on paper is about 13krpm, 720 in practise is actual 13600rpm

Doesn't that mean it only gets 0.1mm of "bite" - surely that would be pretty useless? I must be missing something as the champs showed it was far from useless!

[Flag Captured]

I can't comment on the level of bite there, but I can definitely agree that it looked from useless in the videos from the champs that I've seen! I'm guessing more 'bite' is better to a certain point? I haven't a clue about all the technicalities, my roboteering knowledge spans pretty much as far as what they used to mention on Robot Wars, back in't day.

Anyhow, I've been trying to get my head round what parts to buy for the build - I'm looking to keep things cheap, but have a high torque (preferably high speed) setup, a bit like 540's was, or Storm 2 - something along those lines. Obviously, not to that degree, but I want to be able to push things about with Hardwired, namely because I'd like it to be a more controlled lifter type bot, kind of like how Panic Attack used to be, if you catch my drift.

So, if anyone sees this and has any suggestions as to what I should look out for, that'd be much appreciated! The cheaper the better, really, and I'd like to avoid LiPo cells where I can because I haven't the foggiest about them, and knowing my tendency to accidentally set things on fire, I'm not sure it's in my, nor anyone's best interests if I'm running around with LiPos!

[Eventorizon]

Doesn't that mean it only gets 0.1mm of "bite" - surely that would be pretty useless? I must be missing something as the champs showed it was far from useless!

It is helped by its driving speed when it attacks, Giving it probably closer to 2mm at top speed, and with the energy involved even poor strikes were good. And we all know what happened when it really engaged! [Inertia & Satanix!]

So, if anyone sees this and has any suggestions as to what I should look out for, that'd be much appreciated! The cheaper the better, really, and I'd like to avoid LiPo cells where I can because I haven't the foggiest about them, and knowing my tendency to accidentally set things on fire, I'm not sure it's in my, nor anyone's best interests if I'm running around with LiPos!

Lipo's are perfectly safe when used correctly, just like any tech really. The expense comes in protecting them inside the machine and with the types of charger you need to recharge them; not just anything will do. The were used in Conker 1 along with a Turnigy Accucel 6 Charger which we now have 2 of, one for each machine. If you don't feel comfortable using them, that's fine.

Alternatives are, as you probably know, NiMH's, NiCAD's, A123 and LiFeSO4. But I think A123's have gone bust, and I think I might be wrong with the last one as its a chemical formula but its close enough.

[plargen]

2wd can push things around quite easily you just need a good scoop/wedge and some grippy ish wheels and if your intending to go 4wd then i would recommend going for lipos because there isn't much difference in price and the nimh packs just cant put out enough amps to run 4 drill motors properly
t made a huge difference when i swapped over to lipos in night fury but i kept scruffy on nimh as it was 2wd and if it got under other bots it had no problem shoving them around

[Flag Captured]

Lipo's are perfectly safe when used correctly, just like any tech really. The expense comes in protecting them inside the machine and with the types of charger you need to recharge them; not just anything will do. The were used in Conker 1 along with a Turnigy Accucel 6 Charger which we now have 2 of, one for each machine. If you don't feel comfortable using them, that's fine.

Alternatives are, as you probably know, NiMH's, NiCAD's, A123 and LiFeSO4. But I think A123's have gone bust, and I think I might be wrong with the last one as its a chemical formula but its close enough.

I shall have a look at those, thank you! I'll probably stick with some NiMH's just until I 'find my feet' so to speak - after I've figured out exactly how to electronics, I might go for a couple of LiPos... My 'workshop' is merely my bedroom floor and the kitchen side at the minute, so if something did go wrong I don't think things would end well! I have got a worktable type thing now for outside though. Thanks for the tips!

I'm already thinking of some kind of full body spinner for after I've upgraded HardWired so I'll definitely have to get clued up on my battery safety before I get that started!

2wd can push things around quite easily you just need a good scoop/wedge and some grippy ish wheels and if your intending to go 4wd then i would recommend going for lipos because there isn't much difference in price and the nimh packs just cant put out enough amps to run 4 drill motors properly
t made a huge difference when i swapped over to lipos in night fury but i kept scruffy on nimh as it was 2wd and if it got under other bots it had no problem shoving them around

Ah, thanks for the advice! I do need some better wheels... I think the traction on HardWired needs a major overhaul, so I think the screw on wooden wheels will be out ASAP. Yep, they are indeed screw on and screw off - nope, not a safety feature...
That's really helpful that though, having seen robots like Tornado I assumed that the only way to have a robot that can effectively push was to have it 4wd! Thanks for that though, I shall definitely build that scoop into the design - I don't suppose you have any advice for what sort of wheels to use either? I've seen the RoboChallenge blue wheels, heard that they're good but I'm not sure how grippy they are...

[plargen]

well i use the bearingboy blue wheels, not the grippiest but seem to do ok in my 2 but most screw on bike tread which seems to work quite well