Ion Systems - Build progress log

[typhoon_driver]

The taulman 910 needs to be kept incredibly dry both during storage and during printing. I'm not just talking about throwing a few silica packets in a bag and sealing it for a while. I use a heated vacuum chamber which causes all the water to evaporate at around 60 deg C. Then during printing i keep it in a dry atmosphere until it hits the hot end. If you don't then it will cause weakness and won't print well. Even then there are a few other tricks with it but i can't be giving away all my secrets

[TechAUmNu]

Your humidity must be really high then. I just keep it in a sealed bag with 2kg of silica. Then the spool sits in the same bag while printing with the filament coming out of a little gap. Works great. Last time I had to dry out some nylon 6, I made the mistake of putting the whole spool in the oven... and it melted lol.

[TechAUmNu]

Our application is in, fingers crossed that we get picked!

[TechAUmNu]

We have now started ordering all the parts and putting them together! This is our latest set of renderings for those who like those things. The robot has been on a diet to allow us to get another set of batteries in.

Ring_assembly_2016-Oct-23_12-23-38AM-000_CustomizedView26398045626.jpgRing_assembly_2016-Oct-25_10-06-08PM-000_CustomizedView41495915817.jpg

[R9000]

Certainly is a beautiful rendering - you really seem to know what you're doing with that. Can't wait to see this thing for real.

[TechAUmNu]

Here is our latest progress on Triforce.

On the CAD side:

• The pillars which support the skateboard wheels are now a single piece to make them stronger.
• The top and bottom plates have a nice weight saving pattern applied to them.
• 4 support pillars have been added to strengthen the center of the robot.
• The attachment of the armor rings to the aluminium top and bottom plates has been redesigned to make them easier to attach. They are now welded to steel tabs that bolt on either side of the aluminium.
• Added hardox covers to protect the sprockets on the wheels.
• Changed batteries from Turnigy Nanotech to Optipower 30C. Now with slightly lower capacity but less chance of fire, lower weight and smaller.

Build progress:

• Drive motors now running with VESCs. Thanks to Rory for his help.
• Started work on software to provide controls conversion for inverted driving and automatic orientation to make driving easier (Turns to face the same way all the time).

Some nice pictures:

Initial layout for weight saving structure
2016-11-15.png

Final weight saving design, saves about 6.6Kg in total:
Robot_Wars_Series_2.jpg

Robot_Wars_Series_2_Assembly_2016-Aug-14_09-19-28PM-000_CustomizedView27102788934.jpg

New skateboard wheel support pillars. They also provide most of the structure of the robot.
gallery.0 (1).jpggallery.0 (2).jpggallery.0.jpg

1000Kg Horizontal force.
1000Kg horizontal force.png

1000Kg vertical force.
1000Kg vertical force.png

[bitternboy]

Thas vewy nice, I'd personally be a bit worries about those FOS for the vertical load, are you expecting the equiv of 1000kg force? Also, out of interest, are you doing this as a uni project with the uni's resources or just on the side?

[TechAUmNu]

Thas vewy nice, I'd personally be a bit worries about those FOS for the vertical load, are you expecting the equiv of 1000kg force? Also, out of interest, are you doing this as a uni project with the uni's resources or just on the side?

Yeah, the idea with those pillars is that the bolts or skateboard wheels will fail before the pillar. Which means we might lose one or two support wheels but the chassis will remain intact and we just replace the broken parts.

Its on the side, but being sponsored by the university. So we get access to their resources. We actually have everything we need to do it ourselves anyway but we cannot afford the ludicrous price tag >£7K.

[bitternboy]

Yeah, the idea with those pillars is that the bolts or skateboard wheels will fail before the pillar.

Ah, very sensible.

Are they giving you that money based on the Uni promotion opportunities alone? Seems generous.

[TechAUmNu]

Are they giving you that money based on the Uni promotion opportunities alone? Seems generous.

Yeah. I ain't complaining lol.

[TechAUmNu]

So we seem to have hit a bit of a snag. The amour design that we want to use will cost us
~£1600 to get waterjet. Which puts us almost £1000 over budget.

This is what we are trying to make (12x)
:2017-03-05 21_32_42-Autodesk Fusion 360.jpg
Its made from a 8mm thick curved section cut from 35mm hardox500 and attached with some little pieces of 4 and 6mm which is welded on. Then the whole thing slides over the aluminium and bolts in place, there are 6 curves which are welded together once attached to make a complete ring.

Is there anyway we could make this any cheaper to manufacture?

[typhoon_driver]

Dump the hardox ring and go for a steel ring. Take a look at oil field casing suppliers. I'm not sure what diameter you are looking to get but they should have something relatively close to what you are after. It will be in a high grade of material and it will be measured in inches but cutting a small section off a duff bit of pipe they have kicking around shouldn't break the bank.

[overkill]

I might have some ideas, but need more info. Where does this armour fit on the bot? What is the distance between the brackets? From what you said, once this armour ring is welded together, it is not removable - is that correct? Is there some reason why there are 12 segments and not a smaller number like 4 or 6?

[TechAUmNu]

I might have some ideas, but need more info. Where does this armour fit on the bot? What is the distance between the brackets? From what you said, once this armour ring is welded together, it is not removable - is that correct? Is there some reason why there are 12 segments and not a smaller number like 4 or 6?

The welds on the end will not be very substantial, we want to be able to easily cut through them and fit a new section if we need to. Also there are 2 rings, one at the top and bottom, each with 6 sections (60degree)

The finished item will look a bit like this: armor.jpgarmor.jpg

My thinking at the moment is to get some flat bar and roll it to shape, minus the overlaps. My calculations based off ebay pricing for mild steel makes it about £220, including machining/waterjetting our little joining pieces to the aluminium.

[typhoon_driver]

Tried it with one of the typhoon lightweight bots. Very difficult to get a thin strip to bend into a perfect ring and if it's not perfect first time then it's junked as you can't re-roll it.