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Re: RogueTwo Robots
thanks!
thanks!
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Re: RogueTwo Robots
Mine are 30mm wide, if that's any help.
Anyway:
Event Report
The UK Champs was a bit of a fail for Drumroll. Everything that could go wrong seemed to go wrong and I don't think it got through one fight without some problem or other. Most expensive failure was the Victor 885 catching fire during a whiteboard; turns out two of the corner FETs touched each other. I've yet to check it to see if it's repairable but if it's going to cost at least half the price or more of a new unit, I'm not going to bother.
So Drumroll was supposed to spend the Friday on display and looking pretty but once Grant came round asking if there were any robots for whiteboards I couldn't resist throwing it in for some fun. First fight was pretty pants, one of the wheels came loose and the drum didn't do much (I think the robot also spent most of it upside down), then fight after fight all manner of things happened, including armour bolts vibrating loose causing the hardox sides to fall off (my fault for not balancing the drum
), the rear wedge hinges being completely mangled by Boner (half-expected them to take punishment but not be goosed before competition day) and the aforementioned Victor issue (replaced with a SSR and Battleswitch thanks to Gary and Tom respectively)
The drum was also never really effective on the Friday; part of that may be due to the drum being quite light compared to the old one, but I think the main problem was my batteries. I never got round to conditioning them before the champs so they weren't really providing their full potential. It was a bit better on the Saturday as a result of some charges/discharges.
As for the Saturday fights:
Against NST; the remaining armour pieces got smashed and a weld or two broke, drum fell out and then the receiver battery broke and came out of the switch holder, thereby killing control to the robot.
Against Cyberon and Stagefright; I think I spent a lot of the fight inverted again, can't remember too much of what happened (need to rewatch the video) but then my Corona receiver gave up the ghost (second one to do so, I don't think they like shocks) so Drumroll was dead for the remainder of the fight.
Against Asgard and Heatwave; had a lack of drive on one side of the robot due to the grub screws in the drill gearbox not being tight enough (the drill/gearbox was a replacement for one that broke from an NST hit) so all I could do was spin in circles with the drum spinning, generating some minor gyroscopic forces, and hope for a lucky hit here and there. Somehow managed to get two points from that battle after one of my opponents drove into the pit but with a grand pathetic total of five points, it wasn't enough to see me through to the knock-out stages.
At that point I needed to fix the wheel if I was to continue with whiteboards or a possible shot at the Annihilator, but it was stuck on well and truly and proving a pain to remove, so at that point I was really fed-up and pi$$ed off with the robot so it was consigned to the car boot for the remainder of the event.
The strange thing was that I thought the robot was much improved going into this competition compared with the spec running at the 2010 Champs; back then it finished 12th and got to the Annihilator final, but this time it came joint 26th (tied with Cicatrix, ironic considering I built it
) so it was a horribly below-par performance in my opinion.
Upgrades
So how to improve it? Starting from the basics; the RG1000 chassis pieces are going to be replaced with 16mm Nylon to add some weight and improve structural properties. The plans for an aluminium chassis have been ditched as I feel Nylon is perfectly sufficient, I know how it will perform and I have surplus from Carcinus' material. The old Drumroll chassis was made in 2007 and only got 'decommissioned' so to speak late last year, so it definitely does the business. And although I'm planning on setting up a shed for a workshop, it would also still be easier to work with Nylon than aluminium with my current facilities so all things considered, it makes sense.
Next thing I'm thinking of is taking out the Nimhs (Carcinus can have them) and putting a lipo pack in there. I remember noticing how much of an improvement there was in old Drumroll/Boner at the champs last year when Gary put a lipo pack in it, and with the FlightPower discount just now it would be a good time to splash out on a pack or two.
Control-wise, everything was fine with the Scorpion XL so no repairs or improvements needed there. The Speed 900 is also fine so I'll be sticking with that for now, and sorting out my own SSR/battleswitch combo for controlling it.
Armour-wise, I'm going to weld on a back panel to connect the two side panels together so that the armour is all one piece, and then sort some custom-made hinges for the wedge at the back. That'll just consist of some pieces of steel welded to the wedge and back panel, then held together with a couple of big bolts.
All that should offer a big improvement over its most recent performance and then I'll see how it gets on and take any further modifications from there. No rush for it though, the next event is Robots Live Edinburgh so priority will fall to Carcinus and hopefully Grond
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Re: RogueTwo Robots
Should've just welded a big chunk of windmill on the front instead of the drum, that would've done it
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Re: RogueTwo Robots
They're turbines, not bloody windmills! :P
And yeah, should've just built a pusher too. Would've been much less hassle and I'd have probably got some decent fights
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Re: RogueTwo Robots
You will get a good discount from flightpower, but they just wont actually send you any lipos. There good like that.Comment
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Re: RogueTwo Robots
Aye that's a good point. Even if I was to order them now, they probably wouldn't show up in time for the RL Edinburgh event. Might just pay a bit more and get some from that company you did (Century UK or something like that?)
Also remembered that I need to start on a beetleweight, so come payday I'll probably order some components for that. Until then, I've just found out that I've got Friday-Monday off so time to start planning my shed/workshop
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Re: RogueTwo Robots
It's a Sunday afternoon, everyone's stuffed and lethargic after a big family meal, so what better way to pass the time than with some microscopic tinkering and toy mutilation:
It's not finished yet but it was driving to a degree and was uber-nippy. It uses a couple of speed-hacked servos from GiantCod (the smallest ones they had) but I think I'll need to revert to my original plan of using a pair of Supertec Pico servos as these ones seem to be just a little too lightweight. I also need to find another battery as the one I'm using doesn't seem to get on with the receiver for some reason. It's a 4.8V pack that was used in a small RC aeroplane I used to have but despite the receiver working with my standard RX packs, it just blinks its LED really quickly when I plug in the plane pack. Silly thing.
Weapon servo arm still needs to be properly fitted and a back panel made but currently it weighs in the region of 60g. Was originally meant to be an ant but might as well try for the fleaweight category. It's not a serious contender though, just a bit of fun to mess around with on table tops
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Re: RogueTwo Robots
Cool. Thats pretty pimpComment
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Re: RogueTwo Robots
That is rather awesome will you be making it down to the AWS at all? It'd be fun to have a moving RW toy to play with instead of the static ones ;P
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Re: RogueTwo Robots
i second that
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Re: RogueTwo Robots
Haha, I nearly did this for my hypnodisc toy, I super glued 4g weights to each side of the disc and put a high speed motor on it that I over volted to hell, the thing cut through books with it's typical mangled plastic toy teeth still on. :twisted:
Sadly, the chassis is metal, making it heavy.
Awesome to see this, I wondered why people haven't done it even for a laugh up until now. I want to do it to the Panic Attack toy.
Good luck and videos please!Comment
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Re: RogueTwo Robots
Yeah Joey I should be making it down to the Pontefract AWS, although I'm planning on having a proper decent ant to compete with by that time as well; this mini Chaos will be fun but it won't be able to stand up to much punishment.
I've got the Panic Attack toy sitting about as well that I'd like to modify. I'm never going to play with them as toys again and they're too beat up to be worth something to a collector so it makes sense to bring them to life. Panic Attack has got a good amount of room inside and I'd love to modify Shunt and Dead Metal too but Chaos 2 took my fancy the most so it's getting priority
I'll get a vid up once it's running. Chances are the weapon servo won't lift the flipper with enough force to self-right but oh well - self-righting hoops for the win
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Re: RogueTwo Robots
that servo wont flip an ant, maybe a flea but not an antweightComment
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Re: RogueTwo Robots
Surely that depends on the leverage and linkage mechanisms used? It has a stall torque of 1kg/cm on 4.8V and my arm is only going to be a straight beam around 3cm long, so that gives a lift capability of roughly 250g at stall, and slightly less under normal operating conditions.
It doesn't actually need to lift an ant if it stays within the fleaweight category but I'm sure I used one of these in an obese ant I made a good four or five years ago and it coped with lifting 150g alright. Guess I'll find out when I get it working :PComment
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Re: RogueTwo Robots
You're welcome to try on Catatonia when I get it rebuilt knowing my luck with weights it's probably going to weigh 42g and have a bit of a torque problem...
How easy did you find it to modify the toys btw? I've been looking at mine and it seems as though a lot of butchery is required to the innards.Comment
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