So I mentioned I had some big news to share soon....


All of this happened quite quickly, so I can't exactly say I was planning it. The opportunity came around and I had to take it. I've bought a heavyweight!

Well, the chassis anyway. There was a choice between a hammer and a lifter, so I went with the lifter as I felt it would be a more versatile platform.


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Originally built by Jack Tweedy, the chassis is 6mm mild steel in most places. I think the top panel is 4mm, but it doesn't fit in to what I have planned anyway, so will likely be either replaced or repurposed. The weapon arm will need reinforcing with Hardox eventually.

The chassis itself has mounting points for Ampflow motors and gearboxes for both the drive and the weapon, but I'm not sure I will go for that as it will cost ~£1000 for 3.

With regards to the drive, I'm still weighing up my options. I like the idea of brushless (Maytech look super tempting, but expensive) and they seem to be easier to get hold of ESCs for that amperage at a reasonable price, but are less likely to include gearboxes. On the flipside, it's easier to get brushed motors with gearboxes, but high amperage ESCs are less common and more pricey.

Same goes for the weapon really. I was looking in to wheelchair motors to power the lifter as they provide quite a bit of torque, but after a few discussions with friends we worked out it would require an ungodly amount of further gear reduction to get it to lift 110kg. Therefore, I'm looking in to low pressure pneumatics as you can get a lot of the parts off the shelf from Amazon. Not going to lie, this scares me quite a bit because I have the capacity to be an idiot at times. However, you don't learn without actually doing things, building robots has definitely pushed me out of that comfort zone a few times already.

To sum it all up, I have no concrete plans yet.

And yes, the most important bit: the name. Mr. Krippling was originally reserved for my upcoming beetleweight that is currently in CAD, but I figured it was more of a flagship name for the team. It continues the baked goods theme nicely, expanding out from bread to wider bakery themes. The plan is to paint the robot like an Angel Slice, with the white and pink icing.

That's the most important bit.


Anyway, this is where we are at. This is the big one. If anyone could offer any advice or ideas, then it would absolutely be much appreciated.

Cheers,

Andy