Quote Originally Posted by maddox10 View Post
Why do I feel I'm seen as a newbee by you, Lostdreamer?
Oh hell no.

And I never ment to even imply that.

The problem is, I very much AM.

I think part of the appeal is that you look at these things and go 'I want a go at that!'.

...but I havn't a clue what I am doing. So i'm asking a whole load of stupid questions as I try to understand what is actually involved. Because I don't know, and asking here and chatting to people seemed as good a first step as any. All I know so far is what I've seen on TV and, well, real life and TV are not known to be on the best of speaking terms.

I'd like to try and avoid making any obvious mistakes, which only adds to the number of stupid questions as I try to work out what they are and how to avoid them. So yeah, I'm doing stupid things like looking at $100 dollar cordless drill motors and going:

'Ok, that looks like a starting point. 300A peak current? Won't I be flat out for most of the match? How the hell do I power that?!'
to which the answer is 'You won't be drawing peak current.'
Which leads to 'Ok, so why are people still blowing motors? Can't you just put a fuse inline so you ain't replacing £500 components every fight?'
To which the answer is 'It's more complicated than that.'
Which I suspected. But it's nice to have a bit more info on how.



I clearly don't have the budget to compete with many of the massive kinetic energy weapons etc out there currently. And I can't anyway if I want to use it somewhere other than robot wars.

But maybe I don't have to. Most fights don't last for 5 mins. Maybe If I can make something that can take being thrown around the area like a rag doll for five mins and spend the whole five mins going flat out for the other guy I can take the judges decision at the end of it.

So there will be a lot of questions about what breaks and why because the concept I am trying to figure out at the moment isn't focusing on breaking the other competitors in half. It's working out how I stop that happening to me.

I'm sorry I'm not doing the best job of explaining myself.