Post Extreme Robots Cheltenham

The Cheltenham event was really good fun, and was a high for Broadax 2, followed by a low.

So in melee 1 of the Saturday session, Broadax 2 was declared the winner! This was a fantastic result, the bot ran exactly like it was supposed to, the drive was very on-point and it racked up the points! I have setup dual rates for the drive speed, at 60% and 100% setting - however, I ran this at 100% all the time given how large the arena at XR is.



Coming out of it though, as suspected, the cast rubber on the wheels had perished. It turns out it ate its own tread, such was the drive torque:

IMG_20181110_134635.jpg

Back to the blue castors it started life with for the following fights

IMG_20181110_171521.jpg

Here's where things started to go south. During melee 2 on Saturday, it was clear that the Axe was not firing every time, eventually it packed up altogether. But worse was to come, as with a hit to the rear of the bot, the rear lid bent inwards, and with it, one drive ESC bent in the same way, writing it off.

IMG_20181110_175008.jpg

This happened in a corner of the arena that I couldn't see, and it happens off-screen on all the current videos I can find, but from what most other roboteers have told me, this was the work of Dave Westons Satanix - it might be an ageing bot, but it's still powerful!



Once I got the bot out of the arena to inspect the damage, it was clear that I wouldn't be going back in this weekend To change the Axe motor requires a 70% percent strip down, something that I simply didn't have the time to do. Whilst I currently live a short distance from Cheltenham, I really didn't want to pull a late nighter to fix it, and to do so in the pits on Sunday would mean I would miss the first melee anyway, leaving only one remaining fight for the whole event.

So at that point, I called it quits, and just became a pseudo team mate to any teams that needed a spare pair of hands.


This weekend, I did a teardown, so the bot is a box of bits again. This was to get the axe motor out for a closer look.

IMG_20181117_170010.jpg

The axe motor can is basically the wrong shape and has seized solid; when the axe was hit, the can couldn't spin which meant the only way to go was to shear the shaft away from the mounting to the can.

IMG_20181117_164704.jpg

No magnets were harmed, but the can is no longer round, so it does not spin around the stator. You can't really fix the warping, so this motor is essentially destined for the bin.

IMG_20181117_164746.jpg

With that, Broadax 2 is now shelved until sometime next year, whilst I work on some new bots for the 2019 season. It can definitely be fixed, and may well see a live show or two again in the future.