HardWired - Upgrades and general build diary

[Flag Captured]

It's very helpful, thank you! And maybe it would be slower, but wouldn't the 24:1 ratio give it better pushing power? It'd only be a temporary fix anyway, just until I could make some from scratch... I will have a good look into it though, if I can find a solution for the gears too I'll post it here! As for wheels as well, I'm not sure what size I'm going for yet, need to finalise my design yet - just working out what parts to buy at the minute and then building a prototype with some offcuts of MDF I've got laying about!

[Flag Captured]

Quick update, decided on ditching the brushless drive for now and sticking with some hacked TZ85As and Brushed motors. Probably the easiest thing to do at the minute, no point messing about when I'm on a budget and don't really know what I'm doing in the first place...
Still having the brushless bar spinner though! Going have it as close to 4 kilos as possible, but need to figure out what I'll need to mount that all safely. Thinking of a steel box section frame above/below the bar, but I don't know if that'll be strong enough...

[daveimi]

Bet advice I was ever given came from the Might Mouse Team

"...get yourself a pair of Gimson's and a Sabertooth, works right out of the box for 70 odd quid..."

[Flag Captured]

That does sound some very useful advice, thank you! Was looking at the Gimson GR02s, look very good I have to say... I don't suppose it was mentioned which Sabretooth controller as well? Is it the 2X12 ones, because if so I think I may have a drive system sorted (finally!)

[Shakey]

The 2x12 would be nowhere near enough. Most of the speed controllers in use today seem to be like the TZ85's (hacked brusless). There are many options to choose from but the 25A mark seems to be a good place to start looking.

[daveimi]

I have 2 x Gimson GR01's running on a Sabertooth 2x12. If you look at my build diary there's a video of it running up and down my kitchen It's had some hammer and is fine, they have a thermal/current cutout that will cut back in after it's cooled down.

Obviously a 2x25A is beefier but when my whole robot was made with parts from the bin it's been fab!

The problem with using individual ESC's like the botbitz is that you need to fork out for one for each motor, and then need a way of mixing fw/bk and lft/rgt to give you car type steering. Something like the Sabertooth does that for you, or a Scorpion but they're expensive.

Some expensive handsets will mix but they do weird stuff with limiting current to 60% like the DX5e's do with the Turnigy 85's etc. If your after something easy to use just get something that runs both motors off one controller and mixes for you.

[plargen]

the problem with the sabertooth is if you try pushing something it will probably start to judder and it can't handle the amps

and a cheep v tail mixer is less than £5 so mixing isn't an issue

[daveimi]

Yeah I agree. If you want to run big motors you need something that will handle Amps like the 85's do etc. I haven't had problems with Sabertooth and Gimsons so far I'm not on commission lol but they are easy to use.

[Flag Captured]

Hmm, I see... Though I won't be replying on pushing power, rather a great big spinner, so I may go for the Sabretooth, or even some moderately suspicious ebay speed controllers just for now, whilst I find the money to get a really powerful drive system going, hopefully for the championships next year if I can enter that...

Thanks for the advice though

[plargen]

i use these in both my bots

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/High-Volta...item51ad86eafc

in night fury im running a 4s lipo and 2 drills on each esc and the esc's dont even get warm even tho the motor are pretty warm by the end of a battle

you can also get them cheaper from china if your happy to wait for them