HardWired II

[Revsmin]

Wow, looking good! You know how much it weighs? Looks heavy

[mrsam]

That looks awesome Mario really does do brilliant work and the quality of the welds will be second to none, that shell will stand up to just about everything

[Flag Captured]

Thanks! It's all Mario's doing, absolutely brilliant job I think! And I'm not sure, though with the electronics and everything in there, it is in weight. I seem to recall a figure somewhere around the 10/11kg mark coming to mind, but I'm not entirely sure on that one. Will have to weigh it when it's here!

Definitely too, looks extremely tough - it's quite a relief actually, with my limited engineering knowledge something that won't require a load of fixing between rounds is ideal for me on my first event. Also quite glad looking at this years array of spinners and axes, the older version of HardWired II wouldn't have lasted 30 seconds!

[Flag Captured]

Oh, and another thing too - HardWired II no longer has any weaponry (well, it is the weapon - full body hammer and all that) but I am working on a design for next year that does have a weapon and is a little bit out-there in terms of the design. When I get round to designing that properly, I'll post a few images, but I'm going to keep HardWired II running as long as possible as my more reliable machine. Going to have a look at upgrading where it's necessary over the years, the main one will probably be brushless drive if that proves a good enough option in the future. Would like some of those excessively powerful brushless motors that are 3000kw or something silly like that, but again it's the practicality - probably just going to cause more hassle in this setup with cooking ESCs from high amp draw, messing up batteries etc. The smaller-kw ones might be a lot more suitable, as have been used in Hannibalito and Liftoff (I think). Something for the future though! Course, I'm holding off for now until it gets a bit more use, since the tried and tested S900s will be more than powerful enough for this setup for the foreseeable future, I think.

[maddox10]

Weight, the armor alone is less than 8 kg. Drives clock off around 2.2 kg.

Front plate is 6mm Hardox , sides and are layered 3.2mm hardox.

Hannibalito 3 or 4 doesn't use brushless drives. The first machine we're going to use those is Nebelwerfer2. That one uses a frankenstein combo of Gimson GR02 24/1 gearboxes and el cheapo HK 2850 KV inrunners.

Next try will be with NTM 28-36 outrunners.

[Flag Captured]

That's the one, thanks Mario! I can't seem to keep numbers in my head for some reason...

And ahh that's it -Nebelwerfer, no idea where I got Hannibalito from... Me and my lack of sleep haha! Getting everything mixed up tonight
Still, looking forward to seeing how brushless gets on in full combat scenarios. Seems like it'd be a very viable option to run in theory, but I guess time will tell

[Flag Captured]

So, I've been worrying about axes an awful lot and I'm actually toying with the idea of actually mounting an pair of bulkheads on the top of the machine with an axe on it. This would have a thicker (interchangeable) top plate, maybe out of the leftover HDPE I have with the bulkheads (also HDPE) mounted to that, using sprockets and chains and powered by a drill motor or something moderately compact and light. The axe design I'm thinking of would be an almost hook-like design to act as a way of gripping onto other machines, kind of like how Dominator II used to do, albeit with a spiky axe. Failing that, the standard bladed or spiked designs will do just fine.

I know it seems like a little bit of overkill for protecting against overhead weapons, but it serves a few purposes if I can get it to work, namely self-righting, but also helps me a) rack up points for damage and b) allows me to have a much thicker top plate should an axe hit it, since I'm very worried about my motors getting damaged - no spares and all that. Could also again help me to latch onto opponents and ram them into the wall.

This attachment probably won't be used against flippers since being invertible, I think, is much more beneficial in this case, since it'd take time to self right and that's a second or so more time they have to push me to the side and flip me out.

Going to be a VERY low budget job, too - I think I may have almost everything I need besides the sprockets and chain but I'm hoping I can super-bodge something if needs be. I've got a frankly ridiculous amount of bike chain and old sprockets in the shed, maybe a little rusty but I'll see how it works. Of course, the reliability of the drill motors is something that's definitely an issue, but it's light and something I have to hand - needs must!

I should mention that this all hinges on exactly how heavy the machine turns out to be once I've got everything in it, if I've only got a kilo or so left then it's definitely not possible!

[daveimi]

I don't think a drill motor will have the torque to self right. I'd stick with your robot as is it's strong enough.

[mrsam]

A drill motor has enough power to self right the machine as demonstrated by Bruiser it's just the reliability that can be a problem , is there no way for you to just increase the wheel diameter by a few mm so you can use a thicker top plate? surely that's easier and cheaper than changing your design.

[shakesc]

I wandered around Halfords looking for a chunky mountain bike tyre to give more grip and increase diameter. Assistant in there came across asking if could help - it was tempting but I politely declined hehe

[Flag Captured]

At a reduction and at 4S it might just get there, I do recall an axe bot running on one before and self-righting, though that could just be my bad memory! Really, it's just precautions just in case the worst should happen and Little Hitter or Grant's new hammer bot goes straight through and wrecks a motor or my battery. I'm really hoping that 2.5mm stainless should be alright, though I do remember hearing someone mention that there was a great big dent in their 3mm baseplate, but again that could just be me.

It might still be a project for the future and whiteboards though, quite like the idea of an optional axe...

And I could increase the wheel diameter, but the problem with that is that it actually increases the ground clearance on the bottom - I recall Mario mentioning that the wheels were about 1mm above the baseplate, so I'm going to increase the width through some thicker tyre which should leave me I think about 2-3mm above, which is plenty enough to stop me getting beached but then to add another 2mm of steel on top of that 2.5mm I already have, I'll be looking at adding probably about 3-4mm of tread onto the wheels, which might be a tad problematic in terms of the strength not to mention adding a lot more to the ground clearance which could throw things off... I'll give it a go and see how it fares though

I've got plenty of bike tyre too, got like 6 bike wheels spare in the shed from old bikes over the years! Might head down to halfords though and see if there's anything just a little more suitable...

[Flag Captured]

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Assortment of photos from HardWired II's build - had a few issues to start with, but nothing major so far, I don't think. It's going well, other than that - mostly it's now just down to fitting everything in because the space is so insanely limited in there - enough and fantastically compact, but I'm having to cut down heavily on how much wiring I use which can't be a bad thing. Those connectors are temporary too, just whilst I sort positions of everything out.

Has a few problems with my OrangeRX R620 receiver, doesn't appear to fail safe properly, can't set it into the mode where it failsafes, when it does one esc doesn't work, sometimes it's the one with the SBec, sometimes it's the one without it... It's all a bit strange, and sometimes it doesn't even want to connect up. Going to just assume this is it being temperamental, and I'm working round it accordingly, but may need manual failsafes on standby... Managed to get things rolling with my old non-failsafing rx

The other thing is the pinion that's welded on to the motor shaft coming off, something only I could manage on a test drive but that's being sorted now, one less thing to worry about! Really, just need the LED wiring into my system (need to look that up to make sure I can do it without wrecking my setup) and then the link and also lipo fuse placing into position, then it's ready to go!




Also, as a side note, I've already started drafting the plans for next year's machine, to run alongside HardWired, would like the name Midas but I'm sure that's gone - let's just say it more than makes up for HardWired II's lack of an active weapon...

[SamO]

Sorry, didn't mean to thank the above post, iPod screen is basically dead. Bot looks good though

[razerdave]

There is a way to make them failsafe, it doesn't so it straight out of the box.

Power up the RX with the bind plug in as you have before, but then take the bind plug out. The little light should flash weird. Turn on the TX in bind mode with all the positions set at the neutral position. They should bind together and the RX accepts the current TX settings as the 'default' setting when it loses the connection.

[shakesc]

Great tip, thanks Dave