Post battle analysis and repair

[team death]

Team Death entered the October Robodojo with three robots and was semi successful.

Danger UXB won two fights but I was unhappy with its drivability and it was quite sluggish

and very noisy as like squeaky chalk on a blackboard which irritated some roboteers.

I use drills in their original form-complete with cases and discovered that the Hammer setting

had slipped on one drill and was causing the squeak and also the wheel spindle shaft had bent

and was causing drag on the other wheel so I corrected both these faults today.

I know that when this Robot works perfect it should spin fast so hopefully next evet should be

even better.

Piece de resistance was sluggish and both wheels came loose on their shafts, the springs

on the lifter helped with lifting up to a point but I did not have the drive power to do anything

with the lifted apponent so I will move the lifter closer to the front, remove the springs

and add better drive motors.

Project Fear-this Robot was great fun to drive and the hammer/fork worked well, it only

Won one fight against Harald 2 but because they had beat me twice before I was pleased

This robot was a bit twitchy at the end and I don't know why as yet.


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[McMullet]

Glad the horrible noise had a reasonably benign explanation! It sounded a bit like the hole drive system was shredding itself.

Look forward to seeing the terrible trio in December!

[team death]

Upon closer inspection it appears the sprocket on the drive motor of Danger UXB was

probably meshing against the wheel sprocket causing the horrible noise so you were right Sam.

When I first built the Robot, both sprockets ran very close together around 8 mm of clearance

and are connected by chain.

I have now added a couple of links of chain and managed to move the motor further back so

the clearance is closer to 30 mm between sprockets and is so much better.

Next up.....Piece de resistance.

[team death]

Piece De Resistance

I have done a major re work on this Robot this week. changing all the sprockets

and chain drive system to the drill direct drive through the gearboxes which I

achieved by welding a stub axle directly onto where the drill chuck would be

and this is a tried and tested method which I use on Project Fear too.

Originally when I made this Robot I built the Bodywork before adding the

inner workings and found I couldn't have the motors side by side because

of width restrictions so I had to run one motor outside the bodywork with

a chain going inside to the wheel.

I'm using the same floor plan so the wheels slightly stick out of the body work

so hence the large mudguards made from fibreglass moulded from plant pots .

The lifting arm and head of the Robot is also moved forward with the idea that

there will be less strain on the lifter in the same way trying to lift an heavy

object on a short stick is easier than a long stick.

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[Albear]

Hi Colin! I have some very light aluminium split rims from an old go cart that are almost the same size and shape as your wheel guards! would you like me to post a picture of them if your interested?

[team death]

Hi Colin! I have some very light aluminium split rims from an old go cart that are almost the same size and shape as your wheel guards! would you like me to post a picture of them if your interested?

Yes it will be interesting to see them.
Cheers

[Albear]

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[team death]

December 1st Robodojo analysis....
Team Death took 3 Robots to the Robodojo and there were mixed results.
All the Robots performed better than they had before and in the Robot game it's important
to improve to keep up with the competition.
Adam had his first real go at driving since we built No Imagination now called Piece de Resistance
and I must say I was very impressed with his control and aggression.
So with 5 rounds we had in theory 15 battles which can be bedlam if there are breakdowns
which of course there were-Piece de Resistance suffered a burnt out motor in the 3rd round
and Danger UXB had the same problem after the 2nd round but was able to continue due
to it's design and even managed a Win! against Bread Dead Redemption because they broke
down.

This is the embarrassing bit 13 fights one Win! but in our defence it was a very tough draw-
see the video by Will Caddy on you tube.

I feel the need for a Grudge match against Bread Dead Redemption because I need to fight
them with a fully functioning Machine and not a One wheel on my wagon job.

[Mr Manuva27]

Definitely up for a grudge match! Was looking forward to our fight and was gutted when BDR broke down. Just one wire from the ESC came loose.
Will be great to have a match with two machines at 100%!

[McMullet]

You did a sterling job just keeping them all running! Especially with all the motor burnouts.

I thought all three machines were running noticeably better as well. Good luck for next time!

[team death]

Thank's Andrew

Because I will be bringing 3 Robots for the next events I think a re-match is inevitable

with at least one of my Robots.

I'm not sure whether to rotate my selection of Robots-yes I have another- Barnsley Bruiser

but I will probably stick with the same 3 for now if they are working well.

Thank's Sam

Yes my Robots did seem markedly better and I was taken back at the speed of

Piece de Resistance in it's fight with plastic fantastic.

Burnt out motors is my fault I guess -running 12 volt motors at 16 volts.

[Roboteernat]

12v motors should be ok at 16v, they have usually a 50% over specified power limit. Perhaps its the brushes snapping on the small copper arms internally due to the knocks they had from combat. That is usually the case with mine when i have broken the 550 motors i use.

[team death]

I would agree Nat, normally you could get almost continual use with a 50% over voltage but

there are other factors like the near stall factor of the motors when trying to push another bot.

Motors are going to run hot when over the specified voltage then you add the load it's kind

of asking for trouble-I still include a slip clutch in the design but even that has limited

tolerance when you push too hard so I will up the spec of my motors where I can to be

more compatible with voltage input.

[Redirect Left]

Adam had his first real go at driving since we built No Imagination now called Piece de Resistance
and I must say I was very impressed with his control and aggression.

Thanks for the compliment! I tried to keep things going and apply pressure, and keep on the bots without too much spare time off the ball. Hopefully we can resolve the motor issues so that method works without any issues.

It was definitely a fun challenge keeping 3 bots up and running as much as possible, and the constant flow without too much time to think!

[team death]

2020 Robodojo team Death report

We took 3 robots along to the January event and as usual there
were highs and lows with wins and loses breakdowns and bad luck.

Danger UXB threw a split link in it's first fight which left one wheel

on my wagon again but still managed to beat Bread dead redemption-

also with one wheel working.

Piece de resistance broke the weld on wheel stud and gave me a real

headache all way through the competition and when I finally got it semi

bodged together for round 4 the esc wires came loose after been disturbed

by myself working on the wheel .

Project Fear suffered a burnt out motor on the hammer/fork in round 2 and

a great big hole in the body work from an axe blow.

The highlight for me was Project fear beating Alexander's commissioned robot

despite having no weapon.

All team death robots are now fully working again