Team Death - New Heavyweight

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Another Sunday, another day of progress!

We mostly spent the afternoon getting the sprockets onto the wheels, which was a little fiddly but we managed to get them on good enough the chain won't mangle up between motor and wheel, took us a while to level off the sprocket, again using anything we could see in sight to aid us.
We also needed to cut out a little of the middle support to give more room to the bearings and chain assembly, which unfortunately, once again, meant we needed to seperate it from its welding tacks, we've clearly done this enough, as we got it off a lot quicker than previous times!
We also spent a while drilling holes into the wheels, so we could use a nut and bolt system to help secure the wheel to the drive pole and ensure a smooth spin with no skipping. Minor hiccup whilst I was holding it in place for Colin to weld the nut to the wheel occured when my finger was a little too close and but a little singed, but thankfully the glove took the brunt of the heat!

Todays photos,
1, Sprocket placing and getting straight
2, Screws into the wheels to hold the pole in place and secure the wheel to it.
3, Sprocket & Screw
4, An odd find by Colin, a flicking device - pull back and flick whatever it is a long way! - We've no idea what exactly it was flicking originally, but it has a bit of useful metal on it, not to mention one heck of a spring!

[Theo]

Looking like it's really coming together. Out of curiosity, do you have the electronics sorted or know what you're getting?

[team death]

Hi Theo
I set a total budget for this Robot at around £800 which I think is pretty cheap
for a heavyweight.
So far we haven't spent a great deal on bits-probably less than £150, Adam will
have a better idea I think on costs so far.
We are hoping to use a good Roboteq speed controller which will be a big chunk
of our budget and maybe scooter motor or the best alternative we can afford.

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This weekend we had two days of activity.

Firstly on Saturday we went to a scrapyard for buses that'd had gone before its useful life to the company.
Unfortunately we didn't quite have the tools needed to detach the pneumatic rams from bus doors, a huge allen key type thing, however someone had been nice enough to leave one dangling by its air pipes so we ran off with that. We also took a sheet of the clear plastic used to protect driver from rowdy passengers, and after Colin whacked it with a hammer a few times to zero damage, discovered it was possibly polycarbonate, so ideal for use as some armor, possible for the bottom of the bot.
We managed to get the ram and the sheet of potentially polycarbonate for a tenner, so not bad at all, and if we need more there is a plentiful supply at the scrapyard. Unrelated to bots, but i'm planning on finding a friend and returning and running off with a flip-dot bus display so I can display random messages out of my window!


On Sunday, we got to the actual bot building phase again, which was mainly spent getting the bearings attached on a permanent basis instead of what we've done previously and its just been floating for sake of seeing how it looks, it's now got everything drilled out for nuts and bolts to secure the bearings where they need to be. We may at some point need to cut out some access holes, as some of them are currently hard to access and requires fitting hands in places they really don't fit!

A few pictures from last few days,
1) bit of extra metal needed on the left there to get the bearing to attach to the end pole, was welded on later, with nuts welded to the back of it to keep the bolts in place.
2) We achieved levelness with the overall chassis here, hopefully we'll be able to keep this levelness through the latter stages of progress.
and nonsense from the scrapyard,
3) Colin alighting from the Octobus, empty handed as it didn't have anything of use to us in it.
4) Myself in front of possibly the most unrequired sign in the history of signs.

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Today was spent giving extra strength to the backbone of the bot, and cutting the tail of the bot down to size, so its tail plate can be added.
Before I arrived however, Colin had visited the local carboot sale, and managed to find a large haul of useful bits and bolts for a nice decent price, so we have extra nuts and bolts to paly with now!
We also managed to fix an issue we were having with one of the wheels getting stuck on excess chassis material.


Sometime this week, I'll be going shopping to two local stores, in a quest for a sprocket, a good metre and a half of chain and some exhaust brackets, the latter of which will be used to hold our two motors in place. Hopefully both will have what we're after and won't need to spend ages mailing things in, and we'll have them to use next Sunday!


Unfortunately, the images I had were lost, when my phone decided to act up and need factory resetting as soon as i got home, so I'll retake them next week and add them for next weeks post.

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Another sunday, which means another update!

Today we went through the bounty of goods I acquired through the week as noted in last weeks update. I managed to get hold of everything we needed!
We started by getting out the exhaust brackets, which are going to hold the motors in place. As it turns out the 80mm we thought would work was just a little too snug. Nothing a bit of brute force didn't fix, Colin bent out the bracket to expand it overall, before bashing in each at the bottom so it would go around the motor, then tuck back into itself to fit into the bottom half and fit the nuts in over it (image 1).
Next came the fairly simple task of welding the first bracket into the machine, and after making sure the position was correct for the chain to the wheel sprocket. With a little help from a cut off bit of metal, we raised the bracket slightly up so its more inline without height difference to aid the chain working effectively.
Unfortunately the second bracket wasn't quite so easy, We decided to mount it on the outside of the machine (image 2), and only after welding it in with the motor in place, did we realise that we couldn't actually get the motor back out of the machine, as there is a certain movement needed to get it back out which we'd blocked off. A quick bit of angle grinding later, the weld was broken and then it was rewelded to much greater success within the machine (image 3).
We then attached one of the 9 teeth sprockets I had collected just a few days beforehand, to the motor, this went on first time, so we got on with the next task - building a chain!
We needed to build a suitable chain, as the chain I got was the right size, except it was all off cuts and other such the company had no use for, but I managed to get the whole order £10 cheaper due to that! We got plenty of extra links though to build them up to what we needed, using as few of the cuts as possible as the less extra links we put into a single chain, hopefully the stronger it'll be.

By the end of the day, we managed to mount a motor and use the chain we put together to test run the motor and ensure the wheel moved freely, for the first time, under its own power. The battery used to test was 12V, and the motor is 24V - but the test result was more than I think we both expected! Not sure if running it at the 24V will result in more speed, improve the torque / pushing power, or both.
The chain will be later refined and made more taut, as it currently waves around a bit and bashes slightly into the metal below - this may also need a chain guard fitting so even when its bashed heavily, it'll still not damage anything. The test also revealed the wheel is still ever so slightly catching at a certain point in the circle, so that'll need grinding off.
We recorded a video of the test, the first time anything has been run under its own power; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zn8C5TGgRpo

Todays images;
Colin bashing one of the exhaust brackets, the bracket on the outside of the bot that later proved to be unworkable, the two brackets in working position within the bot, and finally the wheel, chain and motor all in place.

Next thing to do is essentially duplicating everything on the other side of the bot and getting that wheel going. We'll also hopefully make some decisions about the route to go for certain electronics like ESCs and other such!

[Theo]

This is looking very much like GBH back from series 2. Out of curiosity, where is that scrapyard? Might get some parts myself.
It's looking great so far. What weapon are you going for then?

[team death]

Hi Theo
Thats the second comparison to a series 2 Robot I have heard-one said
it looked a bit like Barry and you say GBH-both goodish Robots of thier
era.
We havent set out to make a retro Robot but retro is an ok title
Anyroad we are hoping it will be able to compete against the best that 2017
has to offer when its done with its main active weapon been dynamic jaws
and if weight allows some kind of sub weapon and a new defensive concept
against spinners

Heres the address for the great scrap Bus dealers
P.V.S. Barnsley Ltd
Boulder Bridge Lane,
Carlton,
Barnsley,
Yorkshire
If you have a chat with Adam you could maybe go down together-I know
he was keen to go again.

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This sunday, we worked on strengthening the front, so the scoop and weapon there will be able to take a huge hit and not crumple back on itself. We used another piece of metal over that to improve the look, and also later will be used to mount castors on to help smooth running. The metal (the white strips in images below) came from a bath lift, lowering into the water. Unfortunately whatever that metal is, it completely shredded 2 cutting blades on the angle grinder, we're not sure what the metal is, but it doesn't like being cut - that's for sure.

Over the week, Colin had done the other side of the bots motor mount and attached the chain for it, so that alone made the bot look a lot better and closer to completion.

At the end of the day, we weighed what we have so far, we stashed the loose stuff in the scoop for the weigh in, and it was a little heavier than anticipated, at around 75kg. We can save some of that weight if we switched to LiPo batteries instead of SLA batteries, although we didn't include the rams for the weapon in that weigh in, so that's a little extra weight we forgot to include there. The weight there includes a 2kg plank of wood we used to help spread the weight evenly on the scales, so the weight there is minus 2kg.

Todays images, the altered shape of the bot now its been strengthened at the front, the scales & Colin holding everything up with loose stuff in the scoop for the weigh in
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Another Sunday!

This sunday we worked on the weapons mostly, more specifically the jaws. We've strengthened the links to the jaws further, and drilled holes for the control method for closing and opening them, which will be with chains.
We also started construction on a 'tongue', which will be placed between the jaws, and act as a buffer so spinners and the like cannot damage too deep into the scoop/jaw mechanism.
We made a start on a slab of metal to be used as a tongue, which will basically just act as a stop gap so spinners and similar have something to hit before they hit the back of the jaw mechanism and break something. The tongue may also be used with additional things stuck on to it to aid in this task better against certain bots that appear at the time.
I also brought up a LiPo battery, intended for use later on with a featherweight i'm building as a seperate project. We tested it on the motor, and it all works fine, Colin tested the wheels to see how much force it took to stop them, and seemed impressed! That battery was only running at about 15V, whereas the motors are 24v. So we'll probably buy 2 of those batteries for the heavyweight and double the voltage of what we had for the test. As i'm using the same batteries, it'll also give us a bit of working room between the bots as they're powered by the same stuff, so we can team up on the battery side and bring double the spares with us for each event. LiPos are new to Colin, who has always used more traditional batteries on his previous bots many years ago, and seemed impressed with them!


Todays images,
1) The huge slab of metal we started out with to create the tongue, we didn't complete this today, and focused on strengthening the jaws. It's currently in two slabs for completing during the week or on Sunday.
2) The rear of the scoop on both sides now has a hole, which will be used for the chain to draw back and forth the scoops. We'll probably go back closer to the end and cover up these little bits of the mechanism so hammer/axe bots can't mess up the chains and such.
3 & 4) Some beauty shots demonstrating the jaw functionality. Later on in the build we have some ideas to grip onto any bots that stray into its jaws, so they can't just drive back out!

[Theo]

That looks absolutely fantastic as always. You've brilliantly demonstrated the classic thrown together style that seems to have been diminishing as of lately, it's a great influence that robots don't have to be multi-thousand pound Hardox behemoths yet still be effective. I can't wait to see the jaws working. Do you have any thoughts on names yet?

[team death]

Hi Theo
Yes we do have a name for the Robot and have done from week 1 of the build
but we are still keeping it under wraps untill the final presentation when the
Robot is all painted and up and running-with a bit of luck within the next 6
weeks.
Meanwhile we may have a motto for our T shirts.
(Insert robot name)....The widest jaws in Robot Wars

[team death]

Another weekend over and more progress achieved.
This weekend I did amost a double shift on the robot build-
three hours Saturday and the usual four hours this Sunday.
On Saturday I worked mainly on the tongue of the robot
which will form the main buffer zone in case of a frontal attack
with the main aim of protecting the jaws from damage.
Adam who was unavailable this week had cut the tongue
plate in two last week and this plate needed further shaping before
fitting into the gob between the jaws.
I cut a bridge shape at the base of the tongue and this would allow
the chain and guides to pass underneath, I also added some sleeves
for the guides to enter and offer more protection against inpact.
The tongue was welded in place, guides and sleeves too and I was
well pleased with the finished effect.
On Sunday I continued where I left off and added the chains to the
guides and was once again happy with the operation, they turned out to
be really easy to pull with no guide wheels or grease and the way they
rattled in the scoop when pulled made a great noise.
It's been a bit of a brain teaser as to what will activate the chain
pulled scoop -gas comes with its own complications, like making space
for a gas bottle and ram and the alternative- actuators although strong, usually come
in a feeble aluminium casing and wont stand a major impact.
So my latest idea is to build our own strong enough actuator.
The rest of Sunday was spent strenghthening the scoop brackets
and fitting the underbody castors.
Purchase of the day was a weights bar and item laid around in the
workshop waiting to catch my eye and be fitted was a apprilia
chain.
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[daveimi]

Stupid question but can't work out from your pics and I love your robot. Do the wheels sit on their own bearings, and what stops them sliding off the shaft?

[TechAUmNu]

Looks the me like they are just the right width on the shaft with bearing blocks on either side of the axle.