HardWired II

[Max]

Why don't you use 2mm stainless steel for the top plate?
You could even use 2mm steel over the top then have some thicker hdpe/wood underneath with cutouts round the motors, although this means they are only protected by the steel it will give the top a lot more stiffness and resistance to bending, you just have a slight risk of getting the motors hit by an axe but that's part of the game!

[plargen]

i can bring my angle grinder to gls and you can sort it there if you want

also can you rought round the inner edge of the chassis to put a thicker plate in

[maddox10]

The LiPo sack is easely replaced with a tin box, like a breadbox or cookiecan. Even a large tin can with lid will do.

And 2mm 15Mo3 steel is available at the price of a beer...

[mrsam]

If I come up against you I won't go crazy with the axe

[tweedermeister]

Just because an actuator is 24v doesn't mean it has to be run on that, I run mine on 18v and it's absolutely fine.

[maddox10]

A 24V linac run at 4S is about half the speed and a quarter of the power. Not funny in the end.

[Mega Masher]

Btw, you can get lipo sacks from hobbyking for a quid or so
http://www.hobbyking.com/hobbyking/s...4_x_23_cm.html
Hope this helps

[Mega Masher]

Also, dont be so negative, its still a very capable robot. With s900s for drive it'll still be really fast. And with that much hdpe, it could still take a beating from some spinners and still come out ok.
Its better than anything ive built (arduino, 5 quid motors, random battery, heavy steel box, zip-ties and tape - Shred 1 and 2 in a nutshell )

[Flag Captured]

Thanks for the response, everyone. Have to apologise, that was the effect of a bad day and me panicking slightly because my design all fell apart, after all that work. Guess that's the name of the game, especially in combat robotics, but it isn't half a pain when it'd take me another few weeks to get things sorted. Just a further note, for whatever reason the chassis has bent even further out, and I need to really work at getting it back into shape somehow if I intend to go back to that HDPE structure. Next time, I'll probably use something to get the parts a little more precise and change where I store the thing. It's most likely the warmer weather recently and the slight inaccuracy of the build that's both compounded and caused issues...

It is now being sorted though, and hopefully will still be able to make the championships with a finished machine! Might be still applying paint on the way down, but done all the same...

Thanks for the advice regarding LiPo sacks too, everyone! Will look into those, should be alright in the end, I hope... more updates soon, haven't got a lot of time at the minute, Uni's taking its toll quite severely...

[Revsmin]

Do you know the ratio on the S900s?

[Flag Captured]

I think it's 4.5:1 but I recall Mario saying they run at about 10,000 RPM at 12v so they're a bit faster than Graupner S900s or something along those lines, I'm running them at 4S. I think they're Johnson 900 size motors as opposed to the Graupner ones (I just call them S900s for the ease of it) but I could be mistaken there... I can't really remember!

[daveimi]

keep going buddy your doing really well

[Mega Masher]

Ok then
Keep going with the build, it looks great

[Flag Captured]

Thanks! By the time it's done, I honestly think the only thing I'll have done is drive it... Huge thanks for all the help, everyone who has done by the way!

That said, I am thinking of putting together scraps of parts together to try and have a whiteboard only machine put together, using my old (broken-ish) ESCs, drill motors and radio gear with HDPE for the structural stuff and some acryllic I have laying about, mainly for spinner fodder and testing H2 on since I've decided I'd like to keep HardWired I relatively intact instead of taking it down to the whiteboards...

[Flag Captured]

HardWired II lives!

Pretty major change-up this late in proceedings, but it's definitely all for the better. Would just like to give an absolutely huge thanks to Mario for all the help here, since HardWired II would be a very different machine without the help, and not in a good way either. The HDPE chassis has distorted even more, so if I'd have stuck with it, it'd be unusable by this point anyway. So, here's the new look HardWired II!



Made entirely of Hardox, thicker on the scoop at the front (I think about 6mm, but it's late so I may be mis-quoting!) so it should be able to stand up to even the scariest of spinners, which are becoming more and more abundant by the year, worryingly... Of course, it still needs paint, and I'm going to be putting slightly thicker bike tread on it to give me a little more ground clearance on the top - perhaps adding some little spikes on the front to catch other machines, Bonx style, but they're all just minor things now. Link just needs placing in there (on the top plate I think) and the LED needs wiring into my system too, and we should be good to go!

The electronics are all still the same, speed 900-size motors running on 4S using TZ85As. I can't remember the ratios to the wheels but in all it should be pretty nippy across the arena. Just got to get practising now, and getting everything else ready for the champs like the charging cradle and all that.

Oh, and team shirts. I made a logo in a few spare minutes at Uni:


Going to be painting that onto the back of the machine, most likely, and the paint scheme's going to be white, with blue and yellow highlights because I quite like the look of it!



As for the remaining HDPE I have from the old HardWired chassis, I'm building that into a robot with 100mm wheels powered by drills and other spare parts from HardWired Evolution, and weighed down to about 14-15 kilos so that I've got a test dummy for any future robots.