Tweet
Hey all, decided to make a build diary to log updates on my beetle, even though it’s been around for a while now. The robot body is CNC milled out of a billet of 6082 aluminium, with an aluminium drum using M12 high tensile cap head bolts as teeth.
Been working on a few things, mainly making the transition to brushless drive to save weight and improving the weapon a bit. The brushless drive motors are just the generic SK3 ones, was looking at some other motors to try but they just seemed the best for the job out of the hobby king selection. I flashed some 12a blue series ESC’s to use with them and they seem to work alright (thanks R9000 for the great guide on flashing!), just need to fix the pinions onto the shafts and mount them to the 1000rpm gear motor gearboxes, I’m slightly afraid the pinions will keep coming loose and make the drive really unreliable but I’ll have to see if the Loctite I have is strong enough to keep them in place.
As for the weapon, it worked fairly reliably at the beetle champs in November so changing it was probably a bad idea, but I’ve upped the voltage from 3S to 4S for more power and speed, as well as upping the motor pulley size. Also got bored and decided to make and fit my own 4mm silver steel shaft to the motor to add a bit of strength, and drilled a hole in the outside of the robot to have bearing support on both sides of the pulley.
ion bearing support.jpg
Bearing hole came out slightly bodged but just about fits, when I first span the weapon up the bearing flew out and there was some friction in the system somewhere so it needs sorting out a bit. Pressed the bearing further into the side bulkhead and added a circlip and some Loctite since the test, so the bearing should be more secure now.
Changed a few other small things since the beetle champs, angling the HDPE outside armour to stop the robot getting stuck on its side, which it did a lot at the champs lol, also adding nuts to the bolt feet rather than nylon spacers, which shouldn’t shatter like one of the nylon ones did.
That’s all for now! Cheers, Andy.
Been working on a few things, mainly making the transition to brushless drive to save weight and improving the weapon a bit. The brushless drive motors are just the generic SK3 ones, was looking at some other motors to try but they just seemed the best for the job out of the hobby king selection. I flashed some 12a blue series ESC’s to use with them and they seem to work alright (thanks R9000 for the great guide on flashing!), just need to fix the pinions onto the shafts and mount them to the 1000rpm gear motor gearboxes, I’m slightly afraid the pinions will keep coming loose and make the drive really unreliable but I’ll have to see if the Loctite I have is strong enough to keep them in place.
As for the weapon, it worked fairly reliably at the beetle champs in November so changing it was probably a bad idea, but I’ve upped the voltage from 3S to 4S for more power and speed, as well as upping the motor pulley size. Also got bored and decided to make and fit my own 4mm silver steel shaft to the motor to add a bit of strength, and drilled a hole in the outside of the robot to have bearing support on both sides of the pulley.
ion bearing support.jpg
Bearing hole came out slightly bodged but just about fits, when I first span the weapon up the bearing flew out and there was some friction in the system somewhere so it needs sorting out a bit. Pressed the bearing further into the side bulkhead and added a circlip and some Loctite since the test, so the bearing should be more secure now.
Changed a few other small things since the beetle champs, angling the HDPE outside armour to stop the robot getting stuck on its side, which it did a lot at the champs lol, also adding nuts to the bolt feet rather than nylon spacers, which shouldn’t shatter like one of the nylon ones did.
That’s all for now! Cheers, Andy.
Comment