Nice looking bits, I'm assuming the work of a certain Mario?
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Nice looking bits, I'm assuming the work of a certain Mario?
They are indeed! Very nicely done too. The drives are similar to other ones I've seen, just welded to an angled piece of steel
The only other pieces to the machine which aren't pictured here are the ESCs (TZ85As) Rx (Orange R620) and battery (5000mAh 30C, 4S) which are all fairly standard as far as parts go. They're all in HardWired I and I've not had chance to take them all out yet!
Still not properly started the build as I'm trying to find a decent baseplate. Call it a bit of a bodge if you want, but I'm going to attempt to cut down a 20mm HDPE baseplate to about 5mm and use that instead, or alternatively I'll get a piece of stainless steel or something to make it work. Issue at the minute is getting something strong enough to bolt/weld this drive system and other parts to, whilst also keeping it workable with basic tools (cordless drill, hacksaw, angle grinder) that's also cheap and readily available. I know that's a bit optimistic, but it's what I'm needing to do at this point!
Other than that, I'm now designing an ant and beetleweight made out of leftover HDPE from this, the beetle's going to be a wedge shaped drum spinner (already got some of the structural parts for that after a brief practice at cutting the 20mm HDPE) and the ant I'm not really sure of yet, but I've got a basic 4wd wedge chassis made from 2mm HDPE and bits of dishwasher. Basic idea of that one is that it's cheap to fix up, and would probably get very badly damaged pretty easily. Servo drive most likely and dishwasher-mystery-metal wheels with a rubber band on them for traction, and again would get pretty badly wrecked. Would most definitely look fantastic whilst getting wrecked though!
Last edited by Flag Captured; 28th February 2014 at 00:50.
A 50cm*50cm 5mm thick sheet of HDPE is 8 quid from Directplastics. How would you cut the 20mm stuff down? I can't think of any half accurate way with hand tools. Potentially very material-inefficient, too, assuming it could be done at all; the cost of material lost in doing it is probably about the same as the cost of some 5mm sheet.
If you can get some stainless sheet, even 1mm thick will make for a sturdier base than 5mm HDPE. Of course, it is harder to work. If you have a hacksaw, patience, and suitable drill bits you're there.
A source of thin steel in huge amounts often for free is kitchen white goods.
That's not too bad, thinking about it... And I'm not really that sure to be honest, it was just an idea. Was going to cut a chassis shape and cut it down slowly with a sander. Probably going to go for the steel route though I think! Having such a powerful drive, I'd hate for it to warp the plastic or whatever over time... I do have a friend who's got some scrap stainless, but I have no idea on the thickness, so I might check that! Probably buy some cobalt drill bits and see if that helps things!
I do have a couple of dishwasher sides spare, never used them because they seemed to bend a tad bit too easy... Might give them another go though!
Well for lols, NST was thrown in with a washing machine in '12 and it left it looking pretty sore, so if you can get and work thicker stainless, it'd be a good idea. If this baseplate is structural, as in, it holds the scoop to the drives, then you'll want to make it as chunky as possible. If the bulkheads take the load (generally a stronger construction method) then the base can be thin and serve to keep electronics in and dust out.
I've sourced some materials, going to measure those up when I can - hopefully got some stainless on the way too, so I've got a bit of choice! I think 2mm will be my absolute limit when it comes to thickness, though I think that might just about do it...
As for construction, the idea was that I'm going to have a box of 20mm HDPE that's all attached together, bolt the scoop to the front of that, then bolt the lot (probably the bottom of the scoop too) to a baseplate. Within that box I'm going to have some internal supports/separators that'll also be HDPE, and if I can't bolt the drive to the baseplate enough, I'll probably attach it to the HDPE. I've got a paint diagram somewhere that I'll probably upload in the morning...
Been out and got some screws too, mixture of M6 and M8, and between 40 and 100mm long, the m8 100mm ones are going to be for the main structure, M6 being for the baseplate and lid. Got some epoxy too to potentially glue the drives to the base or the HDPE. Might not be the best solution on its own, but any help I can get to make the things stay where they're supposed to can't be a bad thing!
If you rotate the wheels on your motors you'll notice that the bolts holding it in place do not turn along.
Or at least the ones I have that look exactly the same don't.
On my feather I used a longer bolt and a spacer to mount the motors directly to the sidearmour. With a couple of holes in that angle iron you could than attach your baseplate to that and the sidearmour making a rigid box with your motors supported front and rear.
Forget the combination glue/HDPE, that doesn't work at all.
Niels, take my word for it, replace that spacer with a rubber dampener/shockmount. To rigid ain't good for the gearbox.
I'll look into that, but he rear of the motors are mounted slightly loose.
IMAG0154_zps24a1687f.jpg
Though a section of hdpe is covering the top of the motors as well, there is still some wiggle room to slide slightly in and out and allow the whole gearing to flex a little.
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