HardWired - Upgrades and general build diary

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It is, 2 ESCs (one per motor) on a 5000mah 4S Turnigy Lipo, as for the mixer it's just done on my Giant Cod transmitter, it's one of those £25 ones!

I do have some photos of the circuitry I meant to post a short while ago,
IMG_0427[1].jpgIMG_0425[1].jpg

Sorry about the dreadful quality, but it's the best I can get

[RoboLibre]

Cheers for the pics of the ESC... It doesn't look like anything is out of place from what I an see in the pictures... there are some solder flows that are in quite close proximity, but although not ideal, I doubt they are deal breaking

take a pic of the caps "two cylindrical components that look a bit like batteries" that are by the cables, as that's the only bit I can't see.

How are the wires for the ESCs, the battery, the motors, being connected?
a pic or some pics of it all wired up would be useful

do you have a multimeter?

also what is the discharge rating of your lipo?

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Sure! I'll get one of those tomorrow... The soldering did look a bit dodgy in places, but I think it must be something with the components themselves or as Plargen said in that other thread about them, the software... if it's either of those I don't think there's much that can be done! I'll reconnect everything up too, just got some thicker wiring so I'll see if that makes any changes.

I do have a multimetre, and the discharge rating I think is about 30C and it's about 5000mah so it should easily handle both motors amp-wise I think

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Done some slight redesigning of HardWired again too, still aiming for a disc of about 5.5-6 kg (which I know is complete overkill, but that's more fun) but now I'm going for hopefully some kind of hardox strength steel for a baseplate to mount a 360/HypnoDisc style axle for the disc instead of trying to mount it between two thick bulkheads above and below the machine, mainly because I can then just put some weaker (but hopefully impact resistant) armour on top. Just solves a few issues I had previously with the design (weight related, mostly).
Taken a fair few design cues from 360 and Hypnodisc actually, thinking about it... I'll get the sketches uploaded some point this week.

Obviously, this design's going to take a long time to get the money for (can't even afford speed controllers for the current HardWired) but if I can iron out the creases for the next version, it saves a bit of time when I do have the money I suppose. Especially figuring out when/where I can get different parts cut and all, and getting a decent disc designed!

[daveimi]

I imagine this will be hard to build unless your good with CNC etc.

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I've got some help for it now in terms of the design and build (hopefully should have some help with acquiring materials too) so it won't be as difficult as if I was going it alone - still need to get the electronics bought, but that's a weight lifted I suppose!
Still going to have my wood bot to do myself, but I can deal with wood easily, just not Hardox or stainless steel and the like haha!

Hopefully going to get some use out of these dodgy speed controllers in that wood bot!

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Went and carried on with the Beetle since I had some spare time and scrap parts - now got a fully functional machine made out of an old Playstation disc drive, so that's pretty cool. The best bit is yet to come though, and it's so utterly ridiculous that I'm not even sure it'll work. Definitely not a competition winner this though, I accidentally put a hole in the armour the other day with a stanley knife so it's definitely not going to stand up to those spinners. Still, not bad for a grand total cost of £0!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GHL7co-0F-w

Could do with mentioning too, all the internals are the exact same as the very first version of HardWired and the other beetle that I posted a while back!

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Thought I'd give HardWired Evolution a spin today, and the ebay speed controllers have for whatever reason both decided to short out (presumably due to the dreadful soldering on them, picture of that posted a short while back) and, well... Let's just say HardWired Evolution won't be seeing the light of day in that format again. The seller won't do refunds either, nor do they accept any fault with the product (blaming it on me) so that's a battery, two speed controllers and I'd assume two motors down. Still got my radio gear, thankfully, so the beetle's going to be my 'main' focus until I can afford to replace all the equipment in HardWired. Probably just as well, considering I was going to buy some BotBitz 85a's and a 6s lipo along with some 18v motors and brushless motor for the new disc weapon, but I'd rather have had the old equipment to play about with still.
Have got a quite ridiculous weapon almost built for the beetle, so that should be a laugh in the meantime.

[RoboLibre]

Sorry to hear about the short out Matt, that really sucks...

Don't let it get you down though, you already knew the ones you had weren't upto much, and those sellers just sound useless and unhelpful

Onwards and Forth!

have you tested the motors since? what exactly happened when you said it shorted out? as all may not be lost?

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It does, but hey - nice lightshow out of it
It's probably just as well though, I kept wanting to completely rebuild HardWired and I think that's the push I needed! The gearboxes are fine there abouts, the contacts on the motors appear to have completely gone, and the fans inside are broken - it'd be easier to just buy some new drills entirely and keep those gearboxes as spares!
As for what happened, the contacts on the battery flashed and the speed controllers both went as well, then the plastic around the wires all melted together so I tried to disconnect everything as quickly as I could! Surprisingly the battery seems OK, no swelling or damage or anything but I've got it in quarantine still at the minute, just in case...

Definitely going to carry on with the featherweight side of things, though this has made me drastically rethink the design of it now that the chassis has gone all warped too so I won't be able to reuse it - not saying too much yet, but there might be another full body spinner at the next championships Got some help building it by way of people who actually know what they're doing regards building (something that, let's face it, isn't my strong point) so HardWired may be one to be wary of in the near future!

Toying with various different plans, wanting to try and build a FBS that has the capacity to right itself - I'm a huge fan of Typhoon, Little Spinner and MegaByte from the US but none of them can really self right (though I've seen Megabyte do it once through the centrifugal forces and all that) - whether my plan works or not remains to be seen but it's worth a shot - especially now it'll be built semi-professionally!

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Finally come up with a proper design for HardWired Evolution mkII (cunningly named HardWired Revolution) - basically, think Tornado style 4WD box, but with a wedge on the front and a heavy vertical spinning blade in the middle of the wedge. The way I'm going to try and build it is so that it's a rambot with the power and speed of, say, Satanix or 540, but the heavy disc's for getting the launches that 720's pulled off in the last champs (that one against one of the Toon robots most notably!)
Maybe it won't fully work out as planned, but the idea is that I'd essentially have the best of both worlds of a drum spinner and a rambot.

This was the idea I had for my 'proper' beetleweight but it seems like it'd be a pretty solid featherweight in all honesty. Might make a beetle and upscale once I've refined it a tad and don't have the building abilites of a chimpanzee wearing thick woolen mittens.

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Oh, and before I forget to mention, I did weapons testing with the beetle -
http://t.co/DM2iKSnbuA
http://t.co/wTHndQ71Cw

Quite dangerous if your robot happens to be made out of an old Blu-Ray drive.

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Finally invested in some BotBitz 85A speed controllers (no idea how long they'll take to get here, but bought them nonetheless) so finally going to get a working machine cobbled together!
Just as a bit of a practise, I'm going to use the current design and chassis of HardWired Evolution with some new motors in to just get a machine built, then work's going to start on the new one!

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HardWired 1.5.5.png

Here's the plan I had for HardWired R-Evolution too, expertly Cad'ed in the finest CAD software, as I'm sure you could have expected from me by now. Still got the potential flaws to iron out, but I'd love to make this one my 2014 championship entry. HardWired II can wait till I figure out how to build a full-body properly!

[daveimi]

So are you going to concentrate on your original robot? How far along is it?