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Thread: Making Britain Great Again - resurrecting Nigel Barrage

  1. #1
    Quantax-Dynamics
    Guest
    Hello everyone! I dropped off the forums a little while because I felt like I wasn't doing much that was really worthy of being shared. However I've decided to stop faffing around with making a Henry the Hoover drive around at XR events and make the next step forward.

    The idea came to me after James Davies (of Donald Thump fame) began to work on a second heavyweight. Reasoning that he didn't have the time to work on a featherweight as well, I offered to 'foster' his featherweight Nigel Barrage, returning it to spec for the featherweight championships and in turn using existing parts and solutions to learn what would make a good spinner tick for when I come to do my own... but that's a tale for when I have more money.

    So for those who aren't in the know, James had planned on a minibot for Donald on the TV show called Nigel Barrage but ran out of time. He then entered this into the King of Bots Featherweight Championships last year. If I recall correctly it had one successful fight against Jon Frizell's Unicorn before it dropped out due to issues with the construction.

    Nigel_Barrage_arena_Q3.jpg

    I picked it up off James at Extreme Robots Bolton with all parts except the weapon motor. The first step, done in the pits, was to basically undo and remove everything. James has a very... bodgy... style to his robots, shall we say, and a lot of polystyrene needed to be emptied out of Nigel. Once I got home from the event I was able to better look at what I had to work with.

    IMG_1162.jpg

    The chassis! The motors are big beefy Gimsons which is new for me, having only used drill motors before. The main concern though was with the wheels...

    IMG_1167.jpgIMG_1168.jpg

    The 'hubs' were square pieces of metal welded to the gimson shafts and then glued into square holes in the wheels. The wheel guards meant they wouldn't come off easily but that also meant I couldn't remove the motors. Seeing as I wanted to deal with the rust issue, they had to come off.

    IMG_1169.jpg

    Before I did that though I put my temporary meme feather drive system in to take it for a spin and test the motors. No problems here!

    IMG_1177.jpg

    Ah. A 3M belt and a 5M pulley. Well James did make this at short notice, but something I'll have to remedy. People have suggested BeltingOnline but any other suggestions would be much appreciated.

    IMG_1165.jpg

    A feathertwo! I've been given orders to keep this in as good order as possible considering how finding these are getting to be like hen's teeth these days. The fuse/power light system has since been disassembled and is being put together in a new form now.

    IMG_1164.jpg

    A trusty Redbrick ESC. Unfortunately the Propdrive 50-50 that came with it has gone walkies in the depths of Hereford, so I'll need to get a new one, or a motor that fits the same specs but is within shipping time. Suggestions very welcome.

    IMG_1180.jpg

    Since taking the above pictures I've removed the wheel guards (to have HDPE ones put in place that are removable), and in the process also removed the static spikes from the front. Plan is to make hinged ones. I also sanded and steel wool-ed the interior which was getting quite pitted, and paint stripped the exterior to get rid of the rust. While I know there's more work to be done and painting at this stage isn't ideal, it got me a bit of peace of mind and a good 'glamour' shot before sending it off to Robodojo to confirm the entry.

    When I get some time I'll update on the wiring loom fixing. But again if people have suggestions to find new belts, a motor and a pulley for said motor (can you 3D print them?) I would greatly appreciate it.

    -Greg

  2. #2
    Coming to robodojo champs this month b?

  3. #3
    Quantax-Dynamics
    Guest
    That's the idea! We have signed up, not paid the entry fee yet though.

  4. #4
    Ocracoke's Avatar
    Team Kaizen

    Looks good from what I can see, the wheel hubs look a bit odd mind - Gimson themselves sell a hub for that motor though that does warp a little easily for my liking.

    BeltingOnline is a good shout, might be worth checking GearsandSprockets.co.uk as well, they do belts and such too, got my BW parts for a spinner from there. Motor suggestion... could go with a Turnigy SK3 outrunner (for example - https://hobbyking.com/en_us/turnigy-...ner-motor.html) but a PropDrive is a known element and works, I'd probably stick with that.
    Team Kaizen - Build Diary for all the robots

    AW: Amai, Ikari, Lafiel, Osu, Ramu
    BW: Shu!, The Honey Badger
    FW: Azriel
    MW: Jibril, Kaizen

  5. #5
    McMullet
    Guest
    That's some quality bodging! Good work on the tidy up.

    Another option for belts: https://simplybearings.co.uk/shop/Be...601/index.html

    I've found that most online shops that have at least one of gears, belts, sprockets or bearings in the name sell all or most of those things...

  6. #6
    I have a NTM5060 going spare if you want it, and a generic 5065.

  7. #7
    Hey, looking good for a deconstruction and regeneration project. Shall be following this build so keep it updated
    Belting online is where i tend to go for things within a few days, and they tend to be the cheaper sources for my work stuff too.
    We do have plenty of old belts that i cant use for work, but plenty of old ones that have been replaced (we replace them yearly so i have a tone that havnt really done anything. will check it out as something may be suitable for your weapon drive, then you will get spares!
    3D printing and any CNC machining i could help you out with too so just give me a shout too

  8. #8
    Quantax-Dynamics
    Guest
    Progress! Decided to bite my lip, suffer through cheap food for a month or so and put a (for me) big order in at Hobbyking and under the suggestion of Sam, simplybearings which I somehow found less intimidating than BeltingOnline.

    IMG_1184.jpg

    This one fits nicely, but is a little bigger than the one that was done before. It may require quite a big belt tensioner, but at such a low price perhaps it's better to get a smaller one ordered?

    IMG_1182.jpg

    Next up, a new brushless motor! I think I even got the right one, as it lines up to the holes James cut in the weapon bracket perfectly. I just need the right screws for it (the ones provided in the packet are a size too small) and it'll fit snugly.

    Ended up realising I need a BEC as I tried to spin it up in testing. For a moment I was freaking out that the Redbrick ESC was borked, but putting it in a circuit with a drive system worked much better. This does leave a bit of a question for me though - do I get a cheap BEC or abandon my idea of independent drive and weapon systems? Maybe that'll to rely on my new batteries and how they fit... oh.

    IMG_1186.jpg

    (Lemon for Scale)

    So the plan had been to split the two systems of the robot up. Two batteries, two links, two receivers and two fuses. The works, so that it would be easier to diagnose problems. To that end rather than running the whole machine off a single 5 or 6S, I thought I would be clever and order two 4S. But judging by the size compared to the battery Nigel used last year...

    IMG_1185.jpg

    I think I may need to re-think my position. I think these are more batteries suitable for beetles. Or if I use one for each system, do I still stand a chance of making the full 3 minutes?

    IMG_1187.jpg

    Threw everything in the robot to see if it more or less fits. It does. Next big step is clearing up the fuse circuit and perhaps making a block to hold the links out the back. Still need to design some 3D printed hubs for the Gimsons, and finding a lathe has become more difficult.

    Edit: One thing that did surprise me! I use a Devo 7E transmitter and I found that setting the throttle to the lowest setting actually brings it to zero rather than -100%. Some scary moments as I tried to wrestle the motor into behaving itself. I've played around with the mixing slightly to behave itself but I'm wondering if anyone knows of this being a continual issue or if I simply have a dodgy old TX.
    Last edited by Quantax-Dynamics; 7th August 2019 at 12:07.

  9. #9
    Ocracoke's Avatar
    Team Kaizen

    I think I may need to re-think my position. I think these are more batteries suitable for beetles. Or if I use one for each system, do I still stand a chance of making the full 3 minutes?
    I would say those batteries were too small. I use one in The Honey Badger 4.0, which a Beetleweight. I would think in a Featherweight, the draw on both would probably kill them within the three minutes but for testing, they should be OK for very short bursts. The 4200mAh battery pictured is a better fit but if you want two separate batteries, I'd probably go for anything upwards of 3000mAh in that setup.

    I've played around with the mixing slightly to behave itself but I'm wondering if anyone knows of this being a continual issue or if I simply have a dodgy old TX.
    If it is a Feathertwo Dual, I would turn off the mixing on the TX altogether as the two mixing can have some odd outcomes.
    Team Kaizen - Build Diary for all the robots

    AW: Amai, Ikari, Lafiel, Osu, Ramu
    BW: Shu!, The Honey Badger
    FW: Azriel
    MW: Jibril, Kaizen

  10. #10
    Quote Originally Posted by Ocracoke View Post
    I would say those batteries were too small. I use one in The Honey Badger 4.0, which a Beetleweight. I would think in a Featherweight, the draw on both would probably kill them within the three minutes but for testing, they should be OK for very short bursts. The 4200mAh battery pictured is a better fit but if you want two separate batteries, I'd probably go for anything upwards of 3000mAh in that setup.
    Get sherkt running 1800mha x303 using about half of its 4000mha, spinners are really really energy efficient my hammer bot took 2700mha to 30% in a hammer heavy 3min match. all 6s

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