Skipdiving Robotics

[daveimi]

Oh cool will wander down and bring robot

[daveimi]

This sounds totally daft but it's only just dawned on me, when you swap your electrics into a new robot leave everything plugged in! That way you just supply power and motor cables and it takes ten seconds to get it running!

[daveimi]

Right well before Sunday thought I'd put up a picture and a video. Been having a drive of robot properly and discovered an epic fail. The robot is made from a maplin project box a mate was chucking out and it looked about right. Upon building my stuff into it and cutting wheel slots I discovered the width was too thin to get both motors and gearboxes end to end so I ended up having to stagger them a la Little Hitter et al. The knock on effect of this was that the battery then didn't fit properly, and I've had to put a round head bolt under the back corner to sort of prop the robot up. The battery over the bolt makes it dig in and so if it accelerates hard it pulls to one side. Accellerating gradually = no problem.

Am a bit gutted. And it's not invert-able. Which is just fab. Anyway, I actually haven't set this one on fire so am gonna see if there are any spinners about on Sunday to chuck it in with. If the concept of an ally can with a lid works I'm gonna get on to the fabrication place to make me a proper chassis with lid and move my stuff into that. I've also discovered that the 1000rpm gear motor shafts are pretty fragile and have bent a couple, dunno if anyone else has the same problem? Below I stuck up a picture of the insides.

[daveimi]

I'm not really good at serious robots so built this over the last week or so and am gonna take it along on Sunday. I seem to do better when I build daft stuff. Say hello to The Roses Tin of Doom

[tweedermeister]

I haven't had any issues with shafts bending, although the most force Ash has felt is from it's own weapon. Foam tyres on Fingertech hubs would probably help with reducing force applied to the shafts if it continues to be a problem.

[adz600]

My favourite adversary biscuit tins

[daveimi]

Lol

[harry hills]

Yo Dave. Neat project box beetle. My first one was similar to that, except it used a plastic one.

You're wise to test it with spinners but there will be a difference between rubbishy cast aluminum that will almost certainly crack and legit flat grade box or plate alu.

Here is an idea you may like... Grab some large thick walled alu rectangular box section (you can get it in near perfect short lengths for very little money) and then use some ranglebox to attach a top and lid to it? could be right up your ally (alu?)

I got a 50mm length of 6" by 2" 3mm wall 6082 extrusion for about £3. Maybes some food for thought on boxbot.

[daveimi]

That sounds like a good idea. Going to have another go at boxbot lol.

[daveimi]

Well the roses tin got eaten literally by Alex's very clever spinner. If you haven't seen that you need to have a look to make sure your prepared (mmm wheels nom nom nom).

Cnc'd up some new bits for the next beetle (on the back step). Trying to get to the next couple of beetle events but struggling with them being so far. Need to get some wheels ASAP. Now have a collection of small nimh's depending on robot shape and have made an extremely simple wiring loom that incorporates the speedo, receiver and link.

Frantically desperate to move over to botbitz, dx6i and a lipo. Just looking at whether I can get the dx6i to mix for me.

[Eventorizon]

The DX6i has 3 built in mixing options, we use V-Tail it on all our robots, works perfectly.

And yes... tasty tasty wheels... nom-nom-nom

[daveimi]

Lol Thanks Alex, will get one ordered. They look like a good investment.

[RogueTwoRobots]

Cnc'd up some new bits for the next beetle (on the back step).

CNC - Cut Neatly and Carefully?

[daveimi]

Pretty much Cardboard aided design etc. lol

[daveimi]

Started another beetle. Heavy is going well, hope to be driving it in the next month and then taking it on the winter tour events if they will have me. Pictures of it are boring so haven't bothered so far. Pic of another beetle below.