Team Kaizen Build Diary

[Shooty]

Upgrades are already looking pretty good Lucy! The BBB drive kit should certainly give you a good boost in power and reliability. The nylon studs also sound like a good idea, may be worth doing something similar to the sides as well (or possibly some form of roll hoop).

Was also looking back at the fights from Chatham, and I noticed you ended up losing a fight due to your link getting hit. Given the height of Honey Badger, it may be a good idea to move the link up to the top of the robot? Should greatly reduce the odds of it getting knocked out at least.

[Ocracoke]

Thanks Eoin!

The nylon studs also sound like a good idea, may be worth doing something similar to the sides as well (or possibly some form of roll hoop).

In practice, the wheel guards seem to negate the need for this on the side but will check after the rebuild.

Given the height of Honey Badger, it may be a good idea to move the link up to the top of the robot? Should greatly reduce the odds of it getting knocked out at least.

I can't get the link moved in this iteration of the build but the wiring does need to be overhauled. Will be for 4.2. For this, I might just add the studding around the bottom of the body around the link to make it harder for other robots to reach.

Fitted the motor clamps last night from some scrap polycarbonate I had and did the power on test. ESCs make a noise, weapon ESC lights up... receiver doesn't. Now, I know the new ESCs are OPTOs so they don't power the receiver but the weapon ESC should as I think that has a inbuilt BEC. I had to resolder the positive wire on that so I wonder if it is a bad connection there. I tried two different, known working receivers to no avail.

I've got a couple of spare ESCs which should work - will see what is going on.

[Ocracoke]

The plastic was warm but nothing untowards. The fumes though were very prevelant. Many thanks for the kind comments on the tidyness... had to undo most of it to get the clamps to clamp. ^^;

Yeah, gonna redo my soldering on the BEC wire first and see what happens then. It'd be very unfortunate if I had two dead receivers but as I say, they were both known working from Shu! and older iterations of The Honey Badger.

House move is back on track yeah, shouldnt be too long now.

[Ocracoke]

I think I am going to have to pull out of Bristol.

Tried resoldering the BEC wire on the weapon ESC - no dice. So I put in the Sabretooth controller, that worked but only one of the two drive motors work. I pulled the new ESCs from the motors and put the original Sabretooth controller back in. Again, the same side spins, the other does not. Pulled the motor, redid the soldering on the motor, nothing. Took the motor, plugged it into a good battery, nothing.

To say I am disappointed is an understatement. I'll have another go tomorrow when I've got a clearer head on this but I am elsewhere over the weekend and the deadline to get this shown to be mobile is Sunday. So yeah...

[Shooty]

Would it be worth getting an independent BEC to provide a constant 5V to the receiver? That's what I've done for all of my BW builds, and they're dirt cheap on hobbyking or similar stores. I know BBB asks for proof of mobility, but if the BEC is the only issue, you may be able to just send them a DM and explain your situation.

[Ocracoke]

No, it isn't the BEC as I mention. The physical motor itself does not spin when plugged directly into a battery.

[Shooty]

Ah right, I see now. Well if the motor doesn't spin when plugged directly into a battery, either the motor is dead or the gearbox has seized. Only thing I could think of would be to get a new motor so.

[Ocracoke]

The motor itself isn't seized, I can spin it freely. Trouble is, the lead time on getting a new motor from BBB is 1-2 days and I am not able to work on the robot over the weekend. Now, I can demonstrate mobility (loosely) and then send a note to BBB stating that I'll get a new drive motor from them but that feels very out of spirit of what was requested.