Team Expat - Beetleweight Adventures

[Ellis]

Cheers guys!

Well, time is up. Tools are down, at least until many of them get shoved in the motorhome. Today was my last day of several frantic days trying to get the bots ready. Both feathers are in fairly good shape and as of about 12:30 tonight both beetles are essentially done.

Managed to squeeze the bigger LiPo into Newton and it's been driving. No time to video or properly test but it's pretty positive.

Yesterday and today Gonzales has been the focus. I surprised myself with a single long workshop session and made new wheels for it. The old wheels were extremely loose on the shafts, the tread would creep and foul on the chassis, and they were heavy. The new ones are lighter and run smoothly.

The ring gears are much thinner and are held in by three m5 setscrews. The main wheel body is a single piece of nylon; I had to grind a "trepanning cutter" to do this which worked a treat. The flats on the ring gears are angled (is there a name for this? Dovetail flats?) so the grubs stop rotation as well as hold them in.




The tread is the same random k-nex tyre I used before. The originals have lasted really well. Might have to get some more of these...



Unlike before the tread is actually held on with three recessed screws.

The weight the new wheels and smaller battery freed up gave me enough to make a wedge stiffener. This is more of the same 2.5mm steel as Newton's weapon supports.



^as of tonight. Crappy phone pics, yay. The mess in the workshop, as you can see, is intense, lol. I have severely run out of buttonhead m4 bolts so there are several wrong/missing but you get the idea. HDPE top for Gonzo because it saves a few grams... I suspect it's right on the edge. Will have to complete these two on the road, particularly Gonzales which currently has no insides. :P

Been hard but in a good way. See you in a week gents.