Thread: Making Britain Great Again - resurrecting Nigel Barrage

Progress! Decided to bite my lip, suffer through cheap food for a month or so and put a (for me) big order in at Hobbyking and under the suggestion of Sam, simplybearings which I somehow found less intimidating than BeltingOnline.

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This one fits nicely, but is a little bigger than the one that was done before. It may require quite a big belt tensioner, but at such a low price perhaps it's better to get a smaller one ordered?

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Next up, a new brushless motor! I think I even got the right one, as it lines up to the holes James cut in the weapon bracket perfectly. I just need the right screws for it (the ones provided in the packet are a size too small) and it'll fit snugly.

Ended up realising I need a BEC as I tried to spin it up in testing. For a moment I was freaking out that the Redbrick ESC was borked, but putting it in a circuit with a drive system worked much better. This does leave a bit of a question for me though - do I get a cheap BEC or abandon my idea of independent drive and weapon systems? Maybe that'll to rely on my new batteries and how they fit... oh.

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(Lemon for Scale)

So the plan had been to split the two systems of the robot up. Two batteries, two links, two receivers and two fuses. The works, so that it would be easier to diagnose problems. To that end rather than running the whole machine off a single 5 or 6S, I thought I would be clever and order two 4S. But judging by the size compared to the battery Nigel used last year...

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I think I may need to re-think my position. I think these are more batteries suitable for beetles. Or if I use one for each system, do I still stand a chance of making the full 3 minutes?

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Threw everything in the robot to see if it more or less fits. It does. Next big step is clearing up the fuse circuit and perhaps making a block to hold the links out the back. Still need to design some 3D printed hubs for the Gimsons, and finding a lathe has become more difficult.

Edit: One thing that did surprise me! I use a Devo 7E transmitter and I found that setting the throttle to the lowest setting actually brings it to zero rather than -100%. Some scary moments as I tried to wrestle the motor into behaving itself. I've played around with the mixing slightly to behave itself but I'm wondering if anyone knows of this being a continual issue or if I simply have a dodgy old TX.