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