It's been quite a while since I updated this, so I thought it was about time I show you more of what I have been doing experimenting / evolving / attempting to generally improve Catalyst. I was thinking of doing an update after I'd actually been to some event with it, but lord knows when that may be, so I may as well go for it now.

One of the large problems that I had was getting it within the weight limit, and then having enough weight to put some meaningful armor on it. I had already gone down the road of drilling holes, which looked promising until I realised how much this had weakened the chassis. This prompted a bit of a redesign where I switched the lifter design from 4 bar, to a more standard setup, and shortened the whole thing by around 30mm:
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This shortening meant that the servo for the lifter had to go on the underside of the "lid", but after putting it all back together, and treating myself to a small sheet of Grade 5 titanium for the scoop, it looked like this:
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Adding the rear panel (also made from my old boiler) plus the lower weight at the front really helped the maneuverability, and it seemed much more nimble to drive. However having this design of lifter meant that it would not self right with a wedge shaped back, so I decided to move the battery to the front and make the rear flat HDPE, which significantly helped the weight situation:
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Also neatened up the front:
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Now with ample weight to spare I was actually able to add some top panels, and after an excellent suggestion on the wheels, changed to some orange Banebots ones:
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Paint and stickers and it sort of feels like its done.........for now anyway:
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