Team Kaizen Build Diary

[Ocracoke]

Azriel
I've decided to take the plunge to refit Azriel with brushless drive following a successful conversion I did a few months back. I was planning to refit the axe motor with a brushless motor as well but I think that would require a bit more work to make it work correctly so for the moment, drive only. I'll be using XK-3674 1650kV inrunner motors in this one, which is a little narrower and longer than I would like but that is what I have so it'll do. I've also picked up another 3S LiFe battery so it'll be running at 6S LiFe.

If it turns out to be too fast on the 100mm wheels, I'll put this one on 75mm wheels because one of the things I liked about Azriel at EXR Bolton was the controllability of the machine. It'll always be a case of finding a balance I guess. By my calculation, the new motor/gearbox setup should be spitting out ~2300RPM on the output shaft ((19.8v * 1650) / 13.7) at full power which I think is ~27mph on the 100mm wheels and ~20 on the 75mm wheels. Might need to configure some limiting as well :P

Ramu
This is the Shakey robot I bought last year from Greg which until recently, I've not been able to run because I didn't have a DSM2 controller (thanks Euan!). It is a simple rambot and it does need a little bit of attention but it should still functionally work. There are little things I want to do to it, like paint the thing and perhaps remake the front wedge on it but otherwise, it'll go again. A new battery has been ordered for it.

Jibril
The designs for Jibril 2.0 are nearly done, down to picking the materials now and will be ordering the materials in one go at the end of the month. I'll be reusing most of the internal components out of Jibril 1.0x but replacing things like the silver steel shafts with hardened ones in places and locking down the gears on the axe gearbox properly this time because the Scythe has fired, in the 15.75:1 gearbox configuration, a magnificent total of one time during the entire weekend. I may also end up rewiring the thing because right now, the wiring loom in there is a bit pick'n'mix and as EXR Bolton proved, the soldering is a bit rubbish in places.