White Flag Raised.
Ok I will build a feather weight. So I will revert to my original design but downscale. Bringing back the flywheel. Sorry guys for being a Ignorant idiot and thank you for smashing the square peg of feather weight into the round hole of my brain. So Any tips for feather?
No need to be down on yourself, if anything you now have reason to be more enthusiastic! Welcome to the world of robot combat, or rather, welcome to the jungle?
Look forward to whatever you come up with now.
Go look in the featherweight section. Several how do I start type threads. If you can't find an answer by all means ask.
You don't have to give in on the feather-push. I would like more heavies. But it's a steep learning curve with a pricetag attached.
Oh well. The formula for a robot. Time*Resources*Creativity= robot.
Time doesn't need an explanation.
Resources can go from the obvious, a stack o money, to a workshop, to a large pile of "scrapyard parts".
Creativity encompasses all non tangible resources. From raw brainpower, to a deft hand at google fu.
Coming to events is a great way to fuel creativity.
The questions you can ask yourself.
Spend time and creativity to re-invent the drivetrain, or spend money to buy a semi-ready to use one?
Testbed with Plywood, or going full monty with the "right stuff"?
I will mess around with some wood first after I have the basic Battery, Motors, TX, RX, ESC's because then I can work out the size a shape I need. I will almost certainly drop into a event when I can (spectate). I will go for a Heavy after don't count that out, I just know that your advice and everyone's is 100 times better than my brain alone. I will be buying parts pretty soon so what's the best motors available for a reasonable price?
Best motors for a reasonable price. What do you want? Uberpower, speeds approaching the take off speed of a brick? Or something as light in weight as possible and still capable of inducing movement?
Also, a motor alone won't cut the chase. Gearing is important as well.
Well for simplicity It would be handy to get a motor with a suitable gearbox pre-fitted. I will be using a spinner so I want to be fast and nippy to stay away from flippers and get at weak spots around the back.
oh yes I will also make the robot invertible so it is possible to run upside down as this is a common feature of other spinners, Although I want to keep angled sides to increase armour effectiveness. I really think I should start a new thread in feather weight.
You could ask the moderators to clean up the thread.
Either there or in Build Diaries. ^
As for drive, a set of argos drills will set you pack perhaps 25 quid. For that you get two motors with gearboxes attached. They aren't combat-ready, they need some tweaks, but nothing drastic. There are videos on the channel in my signature explaining how to make such a motor combat ready. It's a tad out of date in terms of what I have to share on how to make them rugged but it will do the job.
With 4 inch wheels and nominal voltage, you're looking at about 7mph with drills. If you change some of the gearbox internals (parts are cheap and easily available) you can up that to around 10mph quite easily. I will make a video about this someday.
Drill-alikes exist. The products from Gimson.co.uk are essentially drills in a more usable shape, i.e., mounting is easier as it comes with bolt holes. Price is higher, of course. Speeds will be the same as with drills, with the same slightly faster option should you want it.
There are a few much higher end (and more reliable) options, sadly nearly all only found in the US. "Banebots" and "Magnum" gearboxes and motors come to mind. Prices are doubled once again, and there is postage to think about, but they are fancy bits of kit.
There are options for custom gearboxes, though they will require some engineering. Typically you buy larger motors (generally lower RPM, more torque) than those found in drills and the like, then take a single stage reduction using gears from them to the wheel(s). Two-stage reductions are often needed because top speeds can be very high and torque low with single-stage reductions. Mario (maddox) is adept with custom gearboxes. I can't say I recommend this for a first build, but it's there.
A much less powerful but still viable option, though I know little about them, is "bosch 35"s. The 35 meaning watts I believe. They're found powering the seat adjustments in old jaguars, so ebay or the scrapyard might be your friend there. They aren't directly usable and they won't make for a powerful drive system, one could argue they're a little pointless these days, but again they'll make a robot move.
There are of course many many in-between options, but the above are some of the typical starting points for feathers.
Last edited by Ellis; 1st August 2013 at 14:56.
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