Team Kaizen Build Diary

**Ocracoke** · 23rd May 2023, 14:23

Jibril
The robot has been rebuilt and the axe definitely works. Wherever it self-rights is another matter but to help, I am going to round off the Scythe and the arms a bit to assist in the self righting. 2.1 will have a seperate axe arm and head to allow for interchangability and rounded arms to make it easier to do that.

The changes in the event format for EXR with MWs means I have to be ready potentially before the actual event starts, bearing in mind it'll take me over 4 hours just to get there which... eh.... OK. I've seen some of the lineup for Brentwood, looking forwards to it :P

**Ocracoke** · 3rd July 2023, 18:13

EXR Brentwood 2023
I've decided to either do full weekends camping or not at all for these events which require me to be on the road by 5am and this was one of them. Got to the hall pretty early-ish and was setup. After a bit of faff with the tech check where the robot just wasn't ready, Jibril went in and fought all three matches that it was in.

The pre-show thing... I get the point of it and the quality of my robot just meant it wasn't ready for prime time but the fact is, I felt a little bit sidelined. With no FWs at the event either, whilst I am grateful for the support of EXR despite the low numbers of MWs, I dunno, it felt a bit offputting. I am hoping RL isn't going to be the same but I won't know until later on in the year. Hopefully I can prove that my machines can still rumble with the HWs.

Jibril fought the three matches but in its last fight, after going through an extensive bit of rework to get the axe to work properly, it stripped its gears. I am unsure as to how bad it is but thinking it over, I am going to rebuild the carrier in time for Newcastle and take the chance to retime the axe using the gears from Azriel. The current carrier I am sure is a bit skewed and as was put to me, HDPE isn't good for precision engineering like this. Since I am still bereft of my full suite of tools, I'll remake it out of Polycarbonate and place the gears differently to lower the overall height of the robot.

I had to miss Guildford as the car's exhaust blew up the day before the event so wasn't able to get it mended in time.

Kaizen
The new 750x500mm base plate is here, motor mounts are here. I have the ESCs and motors but no wheels or gears yet. I may very well just end up taking the parts to Newcastle and working on it there but we'll see. The CAD design is ready and specced up, just a case of ordering the parts now.

What I don't want to do is comprimise and fight a half finished robot. I might have it done for the RL events.

**Ocracoke** · 9th July 2023, 11:30

Jibril
I was thinking about the axe on this machine and the lack of overall speed it has. My decision is to remove one stage of the gearbox such that it goes to 10.58:1 rather than its current ratio. I originally thought it was ~40:1 but upon closer examination, I realised I made a mistake in the original calculation. I thought you added each stage's reduction but no, it is a product (multiplied). So each stage is 10.58333333:1. 10.58333333x10.58333333 is 112.06:1.

Yeeeeaaah, gonna take the L on this one. The 40:1 ratio, I am really unsure how I got to because 10.58+10.58 is not 40. The correct ratio definitely explains the lack of speed and also why it is destroying its own gears in use.

Gonna see if I can film the re-engieering of this for a before and after.

**Ocracoke** · 23rd July 2023, 23:41

EXR Newcastle 2023
Going to a new locaton is normally a plesant experience - Newcastle was no different despite the seemingly endless rain! Pulled up and loaded out fairly quickly and with the rebuilt Jibril 2.1 beta (will explain later on) on the bench, it was quite literally a case of charging batteries, tech check and done.

I was very grateful to find out that Audaciious, Parasite and Bandit were in attenance, otherwise might have been a bit awkward being the only MW there. I am still not totally sold on the MW's being a pre show match but it is at least with an audience in there so I am sort of OK with it.

Jibril vs Audacious vs Parasite
The first fight was filled with a touch of trepidation. Parasite was a vertical spinner and if truth being told, I've not faced a spinner in the Middleweight class since Gaston in EXR Gloucester 2018! Either way, the rebuilt axe mechanism on Jibril worked wonderfully and finally got some decent hits in. The Scythe-Axe is now darn fast. I think I need to look at the VEX controller to see if there is some kind of brake on the controller, there was some interesting delays between the controller and the action.

What was certain is that neither Audacious or Parasite were in good shape after the fight. The former stripped a thread in the gearbox and didn't make it back into the arena for the rest of the weekend. Parasite's weapon motor shaft snapped (we aren't sure if the Scythe-Axe caused it) and was having trouble moving. Jibril won the fight but the fuse had blown, first time I had ever done that. Other than that, just needed batteries charging and the side arms swapping around as they were bent.

Jibril vs Bandit
Once again, the fuse blew - I seriously underestimated the power that the axe was using, as well as how wide the gaps were n the arena floor, I got stuck in one and trying to get free I am sure blew the fuse.

Bandit came off much worse though. A couple of i-did-not-plan-it hits on the lid caused enough shiock to go through the lid and into the motor, completely shattering two of the magnets in the motor. That retired Bandit for the weekend.

Jibril vs Parasite
Before going back to the event, I picked up a 100A fuse to replace the 80A fuse I was using. That 80A fuse had been around since I think Kaizen! Anyway, Parasite was the only other MW competitor left and without a weapon so I felt OK about going for it. The fight went pretty well... right up until the link wire popped out because of my dodgy soldering. I did manage to land several chunky hits though which have most definiely left their mark. Had I made it the 3 minutes, I am postive I would have won by Judges Decision but it is the way things go.

I also had Jibril weighed - 41.80kg.

Overall, I had a decent time at the event. With the axe now working properly, its a vicious weapon and now I feel like a legitamte threat in the arena. There is the question of self righting which I would like to find the answer to (it's probably no but we'll see) but the big thing to address now is the fantastically rubbish wiring.

So over August, I will replace all the wiring in the robot with properly soldered connections, a better set of links (EC5s I think) and using bus bars where pissible to minimise the wiring mess.

Pictures and video to come soon.

The "2.1 beta" marker was because I wanted to change the side arms before the event to aid in self righting but didn't get a chance to. I still have the original CAD files so I can modify them and have them recut, hopefully in 10mm Hardox to match the back (I have the weight for it) as well as a new axe maybe? :P We'll see.

**Ocracoke** · 3rd September 2023, 23:37

Jibril
So work has meant I've had little time to work on this. I did, however, get new metalwork in for the axe and side arms. The new axe assembly is heavy - the lightest configuration puts it at 7kg. The 10:1 ratio box will not cope with that so I will be changing it for a 25:1 box for later on this year, so for now, the original axe remains.

The side arms have been replaced with a 10mm Hardox affair from the 5mm Armox arms. With the change in the thicknesses and the minor reduction in length, it should stand up to more punishment than the original set. The shape has also been remodelled so it should make self-righting easier.

The electrics in Jibril have always been... questionable. For a bit of trivia, Jibril, in its 1.0 form, was the first robot I had an electrical fire in. Anyway, after Newcastle, I set about completely replacing the robots electrics. Common issues included the removable link being too big, the plug socket in the robot often being loose and the soldering... the less said the better. I spent a while resoldering with actual flux! I also spent a bit of time using panel pins in some wood (that some of you may have seen) to hold the links and wires in as I was soldering.

The big thing to do is spread flux on the wire, on the bit that the wire is soldering onto and the actual solder itself to get it started flowing.

After a lot of time, this is what came out of it. Given how beefy it is, I am half pleased with it as a result. It still needs some fettling to make the LEDs reliable and isolation but this is pretty good all things considered.

20230903_231100.jpg

The space in Jibril is... very limited so given it appears to fit is verging on a miracle. When I rebuild Kaizen, I will make a mental note to increase the interior space a touch so working on things like this is easier.

**Ocracoke** · 3rd October 2023, 11:13

War on/in the Wirral
I went to this event as a judge which, I have to confess, I do enjoy. I did manage to score a whiteboard with a hastily rebuilt Honey Badger against Igor, which isn't the first time I have fought that robot but lost the fight owing to the battery being on its last leg. I had hoped to get the 5.0 version up and running by then but the 4.1.5 (I think) version would have to do.

The event itself, however, was inspiring. I've never been big into spinners but seriously tempted to put one together following that event. I just wish it had been warmer on the day!

Jibril
Jibril is now ready for the 3 back to back weekends at RL Grantham, EXR Maidstone and RL Stoke. For me, this is now a battle to get into the top 3. The big axes, which I showed off at the event, I am likely not going to get mounted for this block of events given all that is going on outside of the robotics space with me.

Azriel
I really wish I had the time to rebuild this from the ground up as I had hoped earlier on in the year. I spent a couple of evenings tearing the machine down and tidying up/tightening/cleaning all the components so at rebuild, it is more battle ready than it was - one of the motors was just about to fall off. The wheels have had to be changed because the hub assembly was warped and they were end of life anyway - they have been around since The Honey Badger 2.0!

**Mr Manuva27** · 4th October 2023, 16:37

Would love to see Azriel at a Dojo in the near future! Sportsman would be a great opportunity to get it dialled in.

**Ocracoke** · 4th October 2023, 18:11

The issue with Dojo has always been dates, they usually land on a Sunday whee I am usually elsewhere (unless that has changed recently?). Otherwise, hell yes I would come :P

Update: I see it is now on the Saturday (least Sportsman Round 4 on the 18th of November). HMMMMMMMMMMMM. Will see what state Azriel is in after RL Grantham and Stoke.