Hi All

We are going to be taking out first steps towards building some pneumatic machines. We got hold of 2 cylinders of Jamie a while back an I have 2 machines in mind. As we only have spinners, these machines will be for the Robotwars and other events that don't have a Class 1 Arena.

1: A 2WD flipper using a small 10 Bar, 40mm Bore, 75mm Stroke cylinder. This gives approx. 300kg of force at the tip of the cylinder which will be dropped to about 30kg over the flipper arm.

2: A 4WD (2 motors, belt driven) Horizontal spike machine with a 16 Bar, 50mm Bore, 100mm stroke. This will give around 500kg of force on the end of the piston which will have a hardened spike on the tip.
We know that spike bots have not been overly successful over the years but we want to make something different, but given some of the thin armour out there on some machines (LF3, LH3 Explosion) it might be able to do some damage.

The first issue we have is what Tanks to use. We got what looked like a 16oz paintball tank and we also picked up an empty 1kg powder fire-extinguisher which we were thinking of using as buffer tank in the Flipper.

What standard tanks do people use and what valves as well. We have, what I think is, a 3-2 valve to direct the flow in double-acting cylinders.

I just want thoughts on the 2 ideas. I am going to be putting up concepts fairly soon but I cant really do it until I know what parts are going inside. We might have some fun making an Asymmetric machine but neither machine is meant to be overly competitive, just low cost and fun.