Coming back into combat robotics!

[RogueTwoRobots]

Welcome back.

Yeah SLAs aren't really used much now, although we use them in our Scot-Bots kits as they're a good, cheap and safe starter battery. Nimh or Lipo are the two main types used nowadays. Lipos aren't much more expensive and provide better performance, but they can be more prone to the abuse sustained in combat robots if not looked after properly and, as such, there are additional rules and regulations that you must follow if using this battery type.

The cordless drill motors don't look that great for a FW. The round plastic plates don't appear to have any fixing holes to attach to a standard drill gearbox so the design may have relied on pins or the drill casing to hold the two together. Also the plastic pinion (small gear on the motor) wouldn't last long. It's not uncommon to get plastic gears in the gearbox but I haven't seen them on the motor shaft before. I would suggest buying a couple of new cordless drills (Argos £15 each - all metal gears) and get the motors/gearboxes out of those. You can attach wheels directly to them (where the chuck usually goes) and are reasonably easy to mount in a robot. Save the motors you have for spares.

Never used that controller before so can't really advise on that I'm afraid.

Deans removable link looks fine.

If there's a way to get that speed controller working, great. If not, there are a few alternatives out there, the most popular currently being the Botbitz 85A controllers, reprogrammed from brushless to brushed for our benefit (either from Botbitz.com or buy the stock brushless controllers and reprogramme them yourself).

Other than that, you'll just need a power LED, chassis/armour, radio gear and some sort of weapon if you wish (go on, you know you want to )