Flow - general changes & upgrades

[Revsmin]

Well I've had Flow for a while now, and over that time I've found a few fundamental flaws.
1. It's too well balanced! The centre of mass is right between the wheels, which gives awesome grip and amazingly well handling drive, but it wheelies far too much. I added an HDPE skid for the UK champs, and it worked perfectly to keep the front firmly on the ground. One problem was that it broke, leaving the robot as wheelie prone as before.
2. Front is far too steep. As can be seen from Flows performance in 2012, the front end is too steep to wedge under other robots with ease. I fixed this for the champs with a lip bolted on made of some jet turbine titanium the Nipper boys use on their robots. When it was new, it worked nicely with the skid to give ultimate wedge-ness! If the flipper was going it would have done better I'm sure. Problem is, it eventually bent up, and became unusable.
3. The shell just isn't up to it. Flow took tons of damage at the champs. All cosmetic, but damage nonetheless. Pretty sure it's now written off and unusable. So, new shell for next year.

I have a nice list of changes to be made:
Swapping 10bar valve for custom full pressure valve
New shell: 8mm welded HDPE, front end 20mm, with a small 3.2mm Hardox frame around the base to ward off spinners.
Sturdier skid.
New 3.2mm Hardox lip.
TX mods to help with flipper activation.
Possibly smaller capacity Lipo for comp. fights, new bulkheads and if weight allows some 2mm gr5 ti bottle protection.

Another thing I want to do is change the drive from TWR15s to Astroflight 940s with TWA40 gearboxes giving a very slightly higher top speed but heaps more torque. But the liklihood of me being able to afford that is minimal :P

[geeza]

Have you seen the current price of Astros?

[Revsmin]

But the liklihood of me being able to afford that is minimal :P

I sure have

[Eventorizon]

3. The shell just isn't up to it. Flow took tons of damage at the champs. All cosmetic, but damage nonetheless. Pretty sure it's now written off and unusable. So, new shell for next year.

Oh yeah, oh yeah, oh yeah! C3 actually did something!

Expensive plans though, and very possible very heavy... have you got a rough idea of weight?

[harry hills]

The drive was the only part that worked consistently, I'd leave it alone lol

[Revsmin]

Alex - hate to burst your bubble, but the worst of the damage was dished out by NST (bent bulkhead) and TS3 (almost everything else :P). Practically everything C3 did was fixed overnight. Weight isn't really an issue, it was 350g under at the champs, and the new shell will be lighter by 200g give or take. Weight can still be taken out as well, current battery pack is way overkill, does five full fights before dying. A smaller one can be brought in if weight becomes a concern.
Haz, I haven't touched the drive and won't unless money for Astros materialises; they're on the table as extreme long term plans. Just not so happy with Flows lack of pushing power due to the low gear ratio, but also don't want to give up the speed :P

[Mouldy]

Flow originaly had astros with custom whyachi gearboxes... it just wheel span everywhere.

The motors in it now are awesome... think explosion uses the same.

[blazerbotics]

If the flipper is working at full power, you don't need pushing power!

[Revsmin]

It runs the 550 equivalent of Explosions drive, so a bit smaller. Basically drill motors but on 16:1 rather than 36:1. More speed, but hardly any push. I only get 8 flips on full power, if I run out I'll be needing that push!

[Team Invade]

Explosion uses the TWR18s (775s) not the TWR15s that are in Flow (550s)