RogueTwo Robots

**RogueTwoRobots** · 25th February 2012, 21:31

Yeah I'll take that ali drum now that you've fitted those lovely teeth to it!

Not got a whole lot left to do to Drumroll now. As mentioned earlier the belt for the drum arrived, along with some fuses for the lipo, and it fitted in nice and snug:

Most of the day was spent re-doing the armour, which hadn't been properly fixed since NST had its way with it. Not sure what it weighs but it now wraps around the robot as a single piece, rather than two separate side pieces. Need to go over a few of the welds to beef them up, but ran out of welding rods:

I was going to re-fit the wedge as well but, as much as I love how it completes the look of the robot, I'm thinking about just ditching it. I reckon it won't be that effective and will more likely get bent and impede the drive.

So currently it looks like this:

It's also had new tyre screwed onto the wheels as the old stuff was a bit flat and not particularly grippy. I can also switch them round with the Banebots hybrids you can see in the background, should I feel they offer better grip or just want snazzier colours.

Still need to fit the fuse, fit some new power distribution bolts, try and balance the drum and then paint it. Maybe a couple of days work overall.

Still got a couple of things to finish up on Carcinus too, but it's pretty much ready to go. Re-did the paint on the claws, although I've taken the easy way out and just made the claws static. With my dad's driving, it's one less thing for him to worry about

Plan for tomorrow is to start on the MDF bot, although if there's time, I'll take Drumroll down to the industrial estate for a test.

**Gabe01** · 25th February 2012, 22:09

Both looking excellent, does Carcinus drive funny, diagonal wheels ?

, get those pincers working for your Dad

**RogueTwoRobots** · 25th February 2012, 22:42

Thanks. Yeah the wheels in Carcinus are set 120Â° apart and the idea is that the robot is able to strafe i.e. it can go diagonally and sideways. There's supposed to be a third wheel at the back to complete the setup but I've been having trouble trying to find a wheel that's slippy enough to be pulled along when the robot is moving forward/back, but grippy enough to turn the back end when needed.

The robot is also front-heavy due to the claws so there's not much weight pushing down on the back wheel, which doesn't help matters. But I've got a homemade wheel idea in mind that I'll try and see how it goes

Regarding the claws, I think I've actually made the robot a little compact to fit an effective enough actuation mechanism into. Either that or I need to consider more compact custom options. But the drive uses three channels so I think my dad would struggle to cope with having four channels to operate!

**Gabe01** · 25th February 2012, 22:46

How about a wheel modelled on the back wheels of Razer, rolly bits

**RogueTwoRobots** · 25th February 2012, 23:01

I did have a look at omni-wheels, but the only commercial one with a 125mm diameter had rollers that looked like quite a hard plastic, and I didn't want to get it shipped from Australia if it wasn't going to work. I'd probably need a custom-made omni-wheel but there's too much faffing about involved in making one when there's no guarantee that it would definitely do the job.

Will play about with a few different tread materials and see what produces some decent results.

**calumco** · 25th February 2012, 23:03

jamie looking really good

out of interest how heavy is your outer hardox armour?

**RogueTwoRobots** · 25th February 2012, 23:10

Cheers Calum

Not sure on the weight, but I'll find out tomorrow and let you know.

So what you taking to the champs? Drum or crusher I hope?

**calumco** · 25th February 2012, 23:14

cheers, robot with a beater hopefully

was going to be having the same kinda hardox armour around the back and sides too so just wondered what yours weighed, i need to get a bit of a move on with getting it made really lol

**RogueTwoRobots** · 28th February 2012, 21:35

Weighed the armour tonight Calum. Currently comes in at 2.62kg, and I've still to add some pointy triangle bits on the back and sides to stop the robot resting there.

Update

Been considering my drum options yesterday and today, and in the end I decided to mix and match the two drums that I have. The bar-tooth drum that I ran at the 2010 champs was pretty well balanced when it was running off the brushless, until I smashed a tooth off of it anyway

So to save having to wrangle with the current drum to try and get it balanced, I figured it'd be easier and more reliable to just settle for the bar teeth.

First things first, I needed the new endcaps (the ones Kenny made) off the current drum, so out came the angle grinder. This was followed by a lot of hammering, bashing and a few choice swear words, but eventually managed to get them free:

Then I needed the old bar-tooth drum. I ditched the aluminium outer tube, sat the titanium endcaps to the side and un-bolted and cleaned up the teeth, along with the salvaged endcaps:

Put it all together and voila:

Still need to weld it but already I can tell it'll a huge step forward to reducing the erratic vibrations of the robot which will make controlling it much easier. This drum weighs roughly the same as the one it's replaced (~2.3kg) so it's not a huge difference, although it will probably be less potent.

So the aim is to get that finished off at the weekend, along with the rest of the armour (5kg worth of welding rods arrived today

). Fingers crossed it'll just need a paint come the end of the weekend.