Some advice on spinners, please...

[danoh]

ive started planning a heavy weight robot, a spinner can anyone recomend a good motor to use to power the spinning propellor? oh and what grade os stell and what thickness would you surgest for the blade?

[maddox]

The advice.
The motor you want to use is the biggest and most powerfull you can pay for. Bosch 750, with the whole works to get them rugged enough is the bottom line these days.

For the blade, I imagine you want to use a spinner like Fluffy.
So, the best grade of steel you can find, as thick and wide as possible in the weight you have for that.

I myself would use a series wound motor from an hydraulic pump or winch- or a rebuilded car startermotor.Overrun on 24 or 36V-what comes first and is affordable on weight.Just relay switched Albright SW80B 24V ,and on seperate batteries, Hawker SBS 8 sounds just fine.
Timing belt drive, 3/1 ratio, with spring loaded tensioner.
The blade itself, mounted on 2 6310 bearings in mount .2 plates Hardox 12 mm- or simular steel-, 700mm long, 100 wide.Bolted together with a spacer between, so the weight goes up and the stiffness is garantied.

Budget spinner a la carte.

But if need to ask this simple info.. consider it again please.

[wenman]

Hard to say what size motor you need without knowing how bigger disk your planning. A tiny little one about a 100mm diameter or a massive 600mm diameter one.

I myself have built a spinner (check out my profile for a pic) and the biggest problem you will find is that there are very few events where you can run them because the arenas arent up to it OR people dont want to fight spinners. (To bloody right I dont want to fight spinners myself unless their is some substantial reason to do so). This is going to be even more of a problem if robot wars the TV series has as it appears demised.

If your still intreseted in building spinner despite the risk of hardly ever being able to use it Im only to happy to advise you. But hard to say more without knowing the sort of size of disk your thinking of. If you can tell us this Im sure there are plenty of people about who will be happy to advise you.

Richard Wenman
Team Mayhem

[jamesb]

my advice, never, ever, underestimate the energy involved in a heavyweight spinner.

[typhoon_driver]

i can vouch for that one james!

But yes, it would help daniel if you gave us a few more indications of the size of the disc or blade that you intend to build.

Dont be put off by the whole you cant run them at live events arguement (no offense intended Richard) as they provide a heck of alot of fun and you can always enter the robot without the disc running.

[maddox]

Yeps, Pulverizer, our Dutch Elvis powered spinner is at the most Dutch and Belgian Live events. And will run without disk, against everybody? Only the high power flippers like Gravity are asked to keep the weapon off.So it can still be a real fight, and not a tossing party.

Twisted metal, another good Dutch spinner, did go further ,and fitted a linak scoop/fork in place of the disk.Still a fearsome opponent.-I missed that one in Series 7.

[wenman]

No offense taken Gary. And it is true that you can go to events and not run your disk as I myself have done. The other option is to design interchangable weapons like a scoop or maybe some pincers etc

I just wanted Daniel to know the facts before he goes to a lot of effort designing a disk weapon which he can seldom use.

I still think spinners are great and am half way through a complete rebuild (including new body) despite what Ive said about them.

Richard Wenman
Team Mayhem

[maddox]

Nope Christian, Im talking about Twisted Metal.Not Twister-that one was in series 7.
And I must admit, I was forgetting about Meshugah an ICE driven vertical spinner, using a turbineblade from a F16.Also a nasty machine.

[shredderteam]

Theres actually more events now allowing spinners to run than there ever has been in the past.

This year alone we have or have had:

Enginuity Robot Crusade
Debenham
RAF Cosford Robot Crusade
FRA World Championship

And thats without the ones we dont yet know about.

Its becoming a far more regular occurrence than it used to be.. and there are plenty of roboteers who actually enjoy the challenge of taking spinners on.

Dont be put of from building Daniel, theyre a great entertaining and fight winning option.. do be aware though that there are problems from the safety point of view, dont ever underestimate one!
As to building a truly effective spinner.. well I can count those so far on 1 hand!

Sam