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Thread: I'm Thinking Of Building A Feather, And Need Some Advice

  1. #1
    Hi, Im new. My name is Kevin, Im 17 and I live in Canada. I have watched robotwars since series 3. I watched battlebots too. But my dad cut the cable tv in 2002. So I havent been watching much robot wars, but I have been keeping in touch with it.

    As I said Im thinking of building a feather-weight but I will wait till Im older to build it, but Im saying it now so you people can give ideas.

    I have two designs in my mind for a feather-weight. Opinions or suggestions please. There are:

    a)a wedge with a Firestorm/Cassius flipper/sirmech powered by a electric actuator. The outside is all probably going to be alimunim about 10-15 mm.

    b)a wedge or a inverrable box with a spinner powered by a fan motor.

    The drive motors will be drill motors. Batteries were going to be Ni-Cds. But they expenisive. for three it would be 75 pounds (150 dollars in my money). I wanted to keep it cheap. Or should I use SLAs?. 15 pounds (35 dollars in my money) for 5 of them. Im going to Radioshack to see if they had a 3 channel tx and rx. I was thinking of using a old RC car but I was worried it wouldnt take the strain. I also need 3 speed controllers.

    Im going for about 12kg (30 pounds).I found out that my grandpa has some old aircraft alinimnum. That must be strong but heavy.

    Im just worried about the electronics, because that will be the hard part of the robot. if I have a 3 channel tx and rx, and I push forward oon the tx, will it send forward to all the motors? Because one of my motors in the weapon.

    Another problem has came up. i have to use mechincal speed controllers instead of electrical because of cost. What is the difference? the poeple at the store says it wouldnt work with two speed controllers together for steering the robot. So the receiver picks up the signal and sends it to the servo and the servo sends the motion to the speed controller. is that right? Im stupid compared to you guys.

    The people at the store, dont understand the tank steering. They said, if youre going to steer, you would have to reverse the poplarity of the motor.

    What if the mech speed controller didnt have reverse? will the servos and speed controllers be easier to break? Would it be a good idea would be spares?

    What would the skin be made of? Poly and ali? how thick to becasue the body should weigh 10-15 pounds.

    This year, I checked what sort of robots are competiting in the 30 pound (12kg) class mostly all are spinners. Why are spinners so popular? Are they very effective?

    But I still think a Firestorm-type robot (Its my favourite robot. If youre going to copy, copy from the best) with the flipper is a good idea. Using a electric actuator would be a good idea too. How quick would the actuator go with 12 kgs on it?

    Another name that would be good for the robot is Wolf.

    Is it true that robots arent cheap?

    Thank you for reading this, give ideas, sughgestions or critisims

    Kevin Smith


  2. Go with Babeths suggestion for your first trial bot .........perhaps 2 off battery operated drills?

    That will initially solve your battery and motor problems... its also possible to use the inbuilt speed control and reversing switch.

    Ask here ........ http://www.robowars.org/forum/index.php
    http://www.robowars.org/forum/index.php ..if you decide to go the cheap switching route.

    OR if your pocket can stand it this speed controller does 2 motors and connects easily to the radio controller....

    http://www.roguerobotics.com/store/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=61&products _id=132http://www.roguerobotics.com/store/i...o&cPath=61&pro ducts_id=132
    More info here ...
    http://www.robot-e.rdelectronics.co.uk/htm/md22tech.htmhttp://www.robot-e.rdelectronics.co.uk/htm/md22tech.htm

  3. #4
    Hi Kevin

    Good to see robot Wars still has its international appeal.

    Most people here in the UK use specially made NiCad or RC NiCad batteries now as its quite competative. But if your not going to overload it (probably rules out a spinner) you could possibly use the batteries from the drills that are providing the motors.

    In response to your questions about the transmitter. It should be possible (however it isnt normally done this way). With a three channel transmitter it would be possible to control three motors individually. So pushing forward on the left stick will only effect one channel on the receiver which U could use control your left motor. Similarly for your right stick & motor.

    As I say this isnt how it is normally done Im also not sure about these mechanical speed controllers.

    I used to have an RC car with a mechancal speed control it simply used a servo to turn a metal arm which ran other a three or four contacts one reversed the motor for reverse the other two or three contacts provided various forwards speeds (I believe by dumping the current through various resistors). Is this the type of mechanical speed control you mean?

    If so Im not sure if the steering will be very easy and as you only have one speed in reverse it would be impossible to steer in reverse. Oh and you definately want to have a reverse or youll always be getting tangled up with other robots or stuck against the barrier. There is also the risk of the RC power failing and your servos staying in the same place and your robot running away out of control.

    Steering is normally done off of one stick for forward and steer (I know there are exceptions out there). And either a two channel electronic speed controller that takes in the speed and steer signal from the receiver OR two single channel electronic speed controllers and an interface to take in the speed and steer signals from the receiver and control each speed controller. This gives you an infinately variable speed in both forward and reverse rather than a series of discrete speeds as youd get from the mech speed controller I described above. This will make steering much better.

    These electronic speed controllers can be very expensive for a top of the range one but there are some cheaper alternatives around. Not my field of expetise really but Im sure someone else could advise you of the options.

    As for a weapon either sound good to me but as I said above the batteries may rule out a spinner. Also as others have said spinners are destructive and require good areans to contain them. So Id go for a flipper/lifter. (Yes everone I know mines a spinner).

    Hope this helps best of luck.

    Richard Wenman
    Team Mayhem


  4. kane's Avatar
    Roboteer

    Think it might be time to create a newbies look here section of the forum with some threads in.

    FRA Forum Admin
    http://www.fightingrobots.co.uk/forumhttp://www.fightingrobots.co.uk/forum
    Kane Aston
    http://www.makerobotics.com

    Co-owner and builder of BEHEMOTH

  5. #7
    team_ireland
    Guest
    No Kevin unfortunately you cannot, THat would mean you would only have control of say backwards and forwards.

    You want control of backwards and forwards and left and right.

    Hence the need for 2 channels

  6. #8

  7. You can definately do full control on one stick with most four channel transmitters but I think (I could be wrong) that most three channel Transmitters have two separate driving sticks (with only one channel per stick) then a knob or swich for the 3rd channel. This would sadly mean youd have to quickly move hands to operate the third channel.

    And as for a wedge to beat all other wedges, that im afraid is a thing of fiction. All you can do is make the scraping edge of the wedge out of as hard a material as possible (i.e titanium), and have a really thin leading edge, almost like a plane scraping over the ground. A wedge like this though would get plauged with driving problems on most wooden floored seamed arenas...

  8. #10

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