Newbie with a question

[R9000]

I doubt there will be a build thread for Diotior here. They're one of the oldest teams in Robot Wars, and I'm pretty sure anything they built was long before the days of this forum. They did have a spring-powered flipper though - looked to me like a lifting bar with a compressible suspension spring either side. Im guessing they used gears and some kind of remote clutch to wind it up, but I'm not sure. I think you'd be looking at the 2nd to 5th wars or thereabouts for Diotior in action. I don't know if the team are still active in any way.

[Will]

From the online videos they appear to use a pair of coil springs at the rear face of the flipper. A bit exposed but I guess they're pretty robustly mounted anyway.

Lots more reading / videos to do!

[daveimi]

Think it used a winch. The winch on my series 2 has a lever u pull to let it freewheel...

[Will]

Turning the idea sideways - does anyone use pneumatics to spin up a spinner? They seem a great way of getting a large amount of power easily compared to the electrical methods, allowing a near instantaneous spin up, with just a little motor to keep it spinning?

[R9000]

I imagine you'd exhaust your CO2 supply after only a few spin-ups, even quicker if you had to spend long periods of time without hitting the other robot. I'd expect the energy density of a lipo is more than that in the compressed gas at the temperatures and pressures in a featherweight. I think pneumatics are useful for getting things accelerated and moving over very short bursts, like flippers and axes. There are a few pneumatic grabbers too. Maybe if you had a motor to keep it going, but if you're talking something like Carbide's bar I think you might as well have just the motor. What's more you're now relying on two separate systems to activate one weapon. If one goes down, the weapon does too.

[Will]

I was thinking purely for accelerating up to speed, with a tiny motor to keep it spinning to overcome air/bearing drag. I probably need to do some calcs to see how much air would be needed to get a decent spinner spinning at speed and compare that to an appropriately sized motor.

[bigsi]

The latent heat of vaporisation of CO2 is 574kJ/kg the energy density of a typical LiPo is about 500kJ/kg - so not much to call it.
Unfortunately you need a container for the CO2, which for the relatively small amounts involved drives the density right down.

Not impossible - but probably not an advantage.

Si

[Will]

The latent heat of vaporisation of CO2 is 574kJ/kg the energy density of a typical LiPo is about 500kJ/kg - so not much to call it.
Unfortunately you need a container for the CO2, which for the relatively small amounts involved drives the density right down.

Not impossible - but probably not an advantage.

Si

I was thinking more along the lines of maximum power output, electric motors tend to be pretty poor for mass vs peak power. it would be relatively simple to spin something up using a jet of co2 onto an fan/turbine.

Hi Will,

I am in Rochdale and currently building myself so it would be good to put heads together, especially if you need help.

Sounds good 😀
As I said I've got a lot of other things still to finish off before i start in earnest but I'm happy to help out if I'm free.

[Jakebowman420]

Hi guys really sorry to bother you with this! I'm a new member as well and it wont let me post a new thread? My account has been activated.. Any help much appreciated. Will delete post when I work this out cheers

[sersplot]

Hi Will,

I am in Rochdale and currently building myself so it would be good to put heads together, especially if you need help.