HardWired II

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So, HardWired's getting a total rebuild and a new name so I thought I'd best make a new build diary of it. I'm thinking Doomsayer but I'm sure that's taken.
It's all in the planning stage at the minute, but I'm planning to reuse the old HardWired style of chassis with a few design modifications and make it a lifter. Sticking with the old 'low budget is better' approach, I'm going to attempt using either car jacks for the lifting mechanism or this - http://www.rapidonline.com/Electrica...-5-15v-37-1121 - in some manner.

Reason I'm using this as opposed to a linear actuator is they're a fair bit more expensive and I'm not sure how it'd work in my machine, since HardWired is only about 60mm high, hence it might not even fit, and I'd need one that'd lift quite a lot more than 20kg to get the height I'd want on the lift.

Using plenty of magnets for downforce in this one, where I can and to get the power out of it that I'd need, I'm going to go brushless, using this http://www.hobbyking.com/hobbyking/s...arehouse_.html
and this http://www.hobbyking.com/hobbyking/s...arehouse_.html
initially two motors, then moving up to 4 if I can sometime in the future. Going to attempt to gear these down as much as I can so that it's torquey but also pretty nippy. Ideally, I'd like it to be something like Storm II in that it's got plenty of power to push machines into the walls and hopefully knock something loose.

Going to try and make the entire chassis out of Stainless steel to, now that I've got access to some of that, plan being that I make the chassis out of 8mm and the front of the lifting scoop out of about 12mm, the top of it about 5mm. Baseplate would most likely be about 3/4mm at most too. I'm not sure on how heavy it'd be, but Hardwired is extremely flat (Did it on purpose so I could put much thicker side armour on) so I'm hoping not too heavy.

Pictures on their way, I'm building an MDF model to make sure everything'll work up to scratch.


Oh, and another thing - I'm toying with the idea of interchangeable weaponry, so I'm trying to make the lifter removable and replaceable with, say, a small drum or claws or something. Would like to have a lifter/flipper hybrid but I have literally no idea how to pneumatics. Or hydraulics for that matter...

[Eventorizon]

I don't think you ever got any pics of your old robot up. How does that look?

The changeable weapons is a great idea. Don't worry about Pneumatics or Hydraulics, Actuators and motors will be able to give you more than enough lift and in a 60mm tall machine its almost impossible anyway.

[plargen]

for a cheap actuator you can use a car seat actuator which have enough power to lift a fw (if mounted right) but can be a bit slow depending on how much you over volt them also some are quite compact

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Here's the test drive video, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7LBmPvfb_eY, but that's from when it only had two wheels, now it's got smaller wheels and 4 of them, and just a little bit flatter than that. Everything else is practically the same though

Hopefully so with the actuators too, the only worry I had was having enough force to lift another machine in something that compact, but where there's a will there's a way I suppose! Thanks!

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I'll have a look at a car seat actuator too, completely passed my mind to look for reusable parts! There's a scrapyard that's got tons of car parts in near me so I might take a trip down when I can - are they usually 12v?

[plargen]

yes most are 12v, the flatter actuator tend to be in rovers and bmw and chunkier ones are in range rovers and ford mondeo

i ran one from a bmw in the first scruffy, each end was mounted as close to each end as possible and i ran it on 14.4v which was a bit slow but it run on 18v i think they would run at a good speed

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Ahh, fab! I'm using a 4s LiPo at the minute (I think that's what I'll have to use with the Brushless Drive as well) so I'll see what sort of speed I can get out of it at that voltage to avoid having another battery- I'm not intending it to be a really fast thing, more as a supplement to the high powered drive - kind of like how Storm II's was, just so that I have that bit more control over the fight. If it is too slow though, I'll see if I can get a small 5s in there or something before the championships

[plargen]

I'm looking at voltage boosters at the mo to speed up the actuator

[maddox10]

Forget it.
A 40W voltagebooster is 50*70*15mm in size (or aboutish). That will bring up 9V-18V to 36V.
Meaning 4 amp going in, 1 amp coming out.

Maybe that you'll find more size friendly versions, but I fear pricetag will be prohibitive.

If you ask me, a dual battery setup is easier, and probably cheaper and more dependable.

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Might even be lighter too, dependant on what mAh battery I'd need for it - obviously, that'll be something to check when I've actually got the actuator itself. Not only that, but I'm not quite as confident with things like resistors or voltage boosters so it's probably the better way to avoid me shocking myself or causing a big fire!

Thinking of getting a mini drum on there too to be swapped with the lifter, so I'll be able to switch battery packs for something around the 6s mark too when I need to.

Speaking of the interchangeable weaponry, so far I've thought of having a drum, the lifter, a scoop and a set of claws/one crusher in there too - Not so much to cause damage, but again as a counter to anything that might be weaker towards those in particular. Mostly just for latching onto something and taking it for a ride around the arena though. Was also considering a front-hinged lifter too, not seen many of those about!

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Bit of a hypothetical design overhaul, I've decided to go completely modular for HardWired II - Practically everything on the machine will be bolted together so I can adapt and replace things where needs be in a decent enough time frame since I'm about as far from being an engineer as anyone can possibly be. Not going to go and change everything every battle - the chassis will stay the same, but this way I can have both Brushless and Brushed drive available in case the brushless system I've got planned packs in or is generally unreliable. It also means I have a bit more freedom with weaponry, I could take side skirts off to allow for more weight in the drum, for example. Again, it won't be a completely different machine every battle, chances are I'll leave it in either the drum or lifter setup and not mess too much with it, but just in the scenario that something packs in like the Brushless drive, it makes it easier to swap out for a more tried and tested drivetrain. Drills, basically. The idea was to have everything (or just the weapon and drive) in mounts not too dissimilar to the Gimsons GR02s and just bolted into the main chassis.

Because of this, too, I'm thinking of switching from Stainless steel construction to Aluminium since there'll be more surface area to make everything modular I'd guess, and I want it to weigh into the Featherweight category, not the Aircraft Carrier category.

Oh, also, forgot to mention too - part of this is to make it easier to get in the innards of the machine, and make it a bit more organised too, should anything get damaged, it's easier to take that one bit out and have a look at it rather than trying to work round everything whilst it's all still in the machine or whatever.

[daveimi]

Are you attending any events this year with your first robot?

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I'm not sure, most of HardWired I's being recycled into the new machine, which'll leave it with both substandard armour and substandard parts, so I don't think there's too much of a point to it. May take it down to some events for pure entertainment value though - the armour's only 2.5mm aluminium so it won't stand up to much...

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Quick question to anyone who may be reading this, come across a decent sounding supplier of aluminium, this one- http://www.aluminiumwarehouse.co.uk/

They've got a grade of it in called '6082 T651', does anyone know if this'd be suitable for a Chassis at 12mm thick, and about half that for the baseplate?

[maddox10]

6082 is a good grade of ali. If you have the weight for that kind of thicknesses, it suitable for the purpose.