High Powered Feather Flippers

[gravity]

Can I have a go at that steel ball and the RR arena ?

[blazerbotics]

hard hats at the ready!

[jamesb]

quote

do I need a failsafe? (no as far as I know)

Answer is yes James. In the FRA rules and Roaming Robots Rules. I would advise to have one. You will need one at Inspire.

I am worried about that you are boasting you have a powerful feather flipper, able to flip a heavy out of the RW arena - and you think you do not need a fail safe - very worrying James.

Mr Stu

a) define failsafe.... it isnt defined in the rules. If I need an FS1 say it. If it is said, please let me know where as Ive read it twice more this afternoon and cant find any requirement for an external failsafe if you meet the criteria of the robot failing safe anyway.

b)the question was is my electronise failsafe enough? no theories please, the rule writers or event organisers can give me a yes/no, and not a you should really have I mean a real yes you can run/ no you cant run

c) not really helpful comment there stu, boasting about my robot is simply pulling a Ewan for fun, if the rules state I need a failsafe, I , like anyone, will go for the lightest legal one. At robotwars filming the tech crew told me straight what I needed to go in the arena, and it wasnt what they said in the rules prior to the event. My flipper will have a failsafe, in that the speed controllers have them and with it being BEC that makes the robot safe, if I need an additional failsafe according to the rules I am not sure which is why I asked for clarification. If someone can clarify just how many lines of defence is minimum as I do not want to enter an 11kg safety device with 1 kg of robot.

d) if people wish to e-mail me any concerns they have about the safety of my robots I will happily address them. I will not however sit quietly and smile when my actions so concern people when they are being asked for clarification on a safety issue that they feel a public put down is neccessary. If you wish to put me down, do it by e-mail, and then I wont have to reply in public.

we do not all have the benefit of robot wars tech crew on our teams. This is what the forum is for, and having read the rules, if someone would be kind enough to clarify if I missed something, I can rest assured I am legal.

link, failsafeing speed controllers which disables reciever when failing. do I need another line of defence to be legal?

Thanks
James

[jamesb]

just re-read that now Im not so offended.
appologies, it was a more aggressive response than I should have posted.

[blazerbotics]

as long as the robot shuts down during its tech check, as far as im aware i see no problems. Its up to the event organisers, seeing as you have organised an event yourself, ask yourself the question Would i be happy with running the robot in the arena being used. If yes then you should be fine, if no, then i suggest you re-think your design. If you are not happy with the safety of your robot, then the organisers wont.

[jamesb]

Exactly!
Thank you Alan.

I think its fine with just electronise CPUs, but if anyone can say yes or no, its Jonno, or the FRA safety authors, or for inspire (I assume its) Stu.

Unless otherwise told I will not invest in an FS1, and I will rely on my elecronise as failsafes. If this is not enough, please tell me asap so I can do something about it.

I also wish to avoid the robot wars situation, whereby a feather with nothing but hope and killalots claw as safety measures where mine was heavily worried about. A safety requirement should be consistent, ie, not sufficient for robot x, but robot y is better so they need more failsafes.

If Trinity/Tantrum need additional failsafes for Inspire, Im happy to put them on, after all Stus the boss, but if they are required I assume everyone will have them?

Likewise with the links.

[blazerbotics]

i believe inspire is Eds event (not certain tho). Most featherweights i know of only use the failsafes within the controllers (we only use these), i dont see the requirement of additional ones.

[kane]

As far as the rules go, we dont state specifics as this would close down the available solutions.

Put very simply though:

Featherweights, Middleweights and Heavyweights drive and weapons systems must failsafe under the following conditions.

Loss of TX signal (e.g switched off, batterys dead, Interference etc..)
Loss of RX reception (e.g batterys dead, damage, Interference etc..)

Basically any situation where the robot is no longer under your control.

These scenarios are testable under Tech check conditions by the well established transmitter off procedure, and now with the addition of the receiver on/off switch by turning this off and making sure the robot failsafes.

How the desired effect is reached is entirely up to you, but it must work reliably or youre liable to find youre asked not to run by the event organisers.

I hope this clarifier€™s any misunderstanding somewhat.

Regards
FRA Safety Executive

[stu]

Ooook here we go - dont shoot the messenger-
Fail Safe - I assumed you were on about fail safe for your flipper not drive. If you use the CPU electronize Speedos - yes they do have some sort of failsafe. If it works - great. But SOMETIMES they don€™t seem to work, if they don€™t work while doing your tech check, then well you have not fail safe - then you have a problem.

€œWe do not all have the benefit of robot wars tech crew on our teams.€ - That was a personal attack comment - and my answer to that is - when it comes to €œfailsafe€ I don€™t need to speak to Alan about that- it€™s just common sense James.

At Robot Wars - the were asking for failsafe on weapons - im not sure if they allowed PCM to act as a failsafe - will check on that, but they WERE asking to physically see the fail safe unit on WEAPON systems. They know a Vantec will failsafe, and us feather roboteers know (most of the time) electronize will fail safe, but they physically wanted to see a failsafe unit of some kind for the weapon system, which is what I thought you was on about - for your flipper. If you turn your TX off, and nothing happens at the pit table, it might be a different story in the arena with noise etc happening and other robots on frequencies near you and all sorts, hence why they ask for a fail safe to make sure nothing will happen.

As for Electronize Speedos to failsafe - not sure about that.
Like I said - they are accepted at all events as a failsafe IF they fail safe.
If they don€™t fail safe during a tech check - then there is a problem - ive seen it done, a robot not able to failsafe using those Speedos - then in deep water.

As for weight for a safety device - Technobots are selling a failsafe unit which is smaller than a hmm, well just very small. Just connects inline with the servo wires. So maybe an 11kg Safety Device and 1kg robot is a slight execration.

Mr Stu