Post battle analysis and repair

[team death]

Hi Adam
Thank you for the information on the cytron, I will take a look at the ESC at the weekend, I think when the fan
dropped into the housing and at least one wire came off, it must have been touching the circuit board and caused
weird effects towards the end of the fight, to be honest I didn't try turning off my controller-this may or may not
caused the robot to fail safe but I had limited control as it was.

Good luck with your Robot Adam, I won't be there on the 26th, I don't think I could do another weekend wearing
a mask in boiling temperatures and fixing burnt out motors quite so soon after.
Can't wait to see Alex's video-there were some classic battles.

[team death]

Cheap Fans !-I had call to change a drill motor cog today which I havent done before and only observed
others having a go.
I'm sure there is a special tool for doing this but I muddled through with somes wedge shaped snips to ease
the cog up until it got quite stiff and then I heard a crunch!.
Eventually I got the cog off with the aid of two washers and two screwdriver levers but needed to ivestigate the crunch
so a total strip down was required.+-
It turns ot the motor fan on these motors are glued onto the stator magnets and are quite easily dislodged-like
probably in battle and are pitiful in design terms, anyway nowt to do but glue it back in place after cog was fitted
and see how long it lasts-I have had a few burnt out motors in competition and I'm just wondering how many
were due to the fan coming loose and clogging up the motor and making it work too hard.
DSCN0372.jpgOh there's a glimpse of my next Robot in the picture-very early stages.
Talking of fans and motors-I'm finding it hard to get hold of like for like ESC cooling fans for my Cytron 60
so if anyone has a complete esc for spares I would be interested.

[Roboteernat]

I have not ha a fan break off during battle, and even when Wanna Chopper made its high powered leap into the rafters, so i believe they could sustain alot of knocks. What did fail in that launch - wish i had a G force meter fitted, was the brass lever that hols the carbon brush onto the stator? had snapped. so fan i think is fine.
I may put a call out asking for broken gearboxes from drills as im working on some things atm that could use these.

[team death]

Meet the latest edition to Team Death's Robot Family-..Arfur Bald Tyre,a Robot incorperating
Half of a Bald tyre with a two prong attack weapon for impalling and lifting the enemy.
Picture-Project Fear makes friends with Arfur
DSCN0386.jpgDSCN0385.jpg

[Ocracoke]

Looks good, well done. Guessing a pair of drills for the drive and and linear actuator for the jaw?

[Redirect Left]

Looks a great addition to the growing Team Death squadron of bots!

[team death]

Thankyou Lucy and Adam, the lifter is hand winch converted to drill powered-it's the same design
I use in project fear to power the hammer.
I'm a big believer in making robots with interchangeable parts so with a slackening of a exhaust clamp
the drive motors would fit 90% of my other bots which is good if you are running 3 or more Robots at
an event.

[team death]

Another Robodojo event completed and post battle analysis....
Big" Thank you" to Ian/Alex/Keith and all concerned for putting on the event using common
sense to keep roboteers safe from covid and Ian only needed to rebuke one roboteer a couple of
times for encroaching into the forbidden zone ( other roboteer work space) he was really on the
ball regarding virus protection.

I took 3 robots to the September events with the intention of running 2 with Danger UXB as a
spare.
Project fear and Driller Queen were to be in the competition but when numbers of robots were
uneven Ian asked me to run Danger UXB too.
Project fear suffered second round wheel failure and was retired early with no points.

Danger UXB is going from strength to strength-winning it's first battle within 30 seconds and
having some noticeable battles with Championship Leaders Amnesia and Lunatic 2 and then
a freebie win against Hells Angel due to absenteeism-eventually UXB suffered another burnt
out motor (at the same side) very curious but I may have found the reason.

Driller Queen improved remarkably since it's last event despite a wheel unscrewing in early
rounds and the drill falling off it managed to beat Mecha sombre (another high ranking robot)
and vettles vengence on judges decisions.

Repairs-I have welded the drill on Driller queen so it can't fall off .

The constant burn out of motors at one side of Danger UXB may have been due to one motor
running faster than the other so I have changed the motor and made sure it runs at a close
speed to the other.

Here's a pic of Driller QueenDSCN0393.jpg

[Redirect Left]

Driller Queen reminds me of that 24 hour (or similar?) beetle we rigged up. Similar frontage and weapon.

It's good to see that despite everything going on, Dojo is still going strong. Hopefully I can get to one relatively soon!

[team death]

Driller Queen reminds me of that 24 hour (or similar?) beetle we rigged up. Similar frontage and weapon.

It's good to see that despite everything going on, Dojo is still going strong. Hopefully I can get to one relatively soon!

Hi Adam-Yes Driller Queen looks a lot like Thunder bug but as Mecha Sombre found out it's
slightly more destructive and I intend to run it on 24 volts next time-HDPE robots beware ! .

One interesting point I forgot to mention-the cytron speed controller in Danger UXB still
performed perfectly despite having the fan missing due to been bashed out in the July
Robodojo

[McMullet]

Congrats Colin, sounds like a successful event especially given you were running 3 machines solo!

Nice to hear that everything was CV safe as well - not that I had any reason to think it wouldn't be, but after 6 months working from home and reading too many news stories I start to worry about these things so that's reassuring.

[RogueTwoRobots]

I've only been to one Dojo since Covid hit, but I have to say it's extremely well covered. There's four pages of Covid info and risk assessments included in the emails that competitors have to read first, everything is laid out to minimise contact/distance/risk etc and as Colin mentioned, Ian is on the ball with keeping things in check. Far more reassuring than the UK Government most of the time

[team death]

Make do and mend...........
I'm from an era when making do and mending was the norm and I guess that helps when
you build Robots on a shoestring budget as i do.
So on investigation I found both of my Robots wheels on Project fear were damaged-one buckled and the other
I tried to plastic weld at Robodojo but it may not have lasted another fight.

Now I could have ordered some new castors off e bay and it's always nice to receive a parcel but I thought
a good refabricating session on a rainy day would be more fun, plus I save about £6.

I started by removing both wheels and knocking out the central boss where the spindle goes-this
was quite easy to do so it's a indication why they failed, then I used my hole saw cut four wheel
panels to sandwich either side of where the wheel boss used to be and after hammering them into
the wheel inner core I drilled a hole to fit the drive shaft.

After bolting them back in place on the Robot I'm pretty confident they will now out perform
the original wheels.

pictures
1 the plastic welding I did at Robodojo
2 cutting the wheel cores out of plywood
3 finished article
4 project fear
DSCN0395.jpgDSCN0396.jpgDSCN0400.jpgDSCN0394.jpg

[Redirect Left]

It's great to see you're sticking by these bots and doing your best to get them running again on the usual shoestring budget, demonstrating exactly what can be done at even the lower end of things! Project Fear might need a repaint, seems someones had a go at its eyes!

Hopefully it won't be too long before you're able to get them back into action, and perhaps this time you might not need to go solo with your army of bots.

[team death]

Thank's Adam
Good to see yourself and other Roboteers getting back into the Robot vibe, despite the Corona virus refusing
to go away!.
To be honest we did learn about pandemics at school but I'm guessing nobody thought it would happen
in the modern age with all the medicines we have-luckily its not the black death!.
Yes running 3 Robots at an event is hard work and keeping up on the paintwork is difficult so yes you are
welcome to lend a hand anytime
2021 looks very exciting despite the Pandemic with new events including walkers planned.
So carry on building and stay safe everyone.