Invasion of the Brazilian Horde:

After checking the Robogames lightweight registration, there are three Brazilian robots that all look extremely well made and destructive. With 14 places left, I am sure there will be some more Brazilian teams entering.

Aquiles



Came 3rd in Maimi this year and has a 7Kg drum rotating at 6,500 rpm. The body looks mostly aluminium, which might help me.


K-torze



No stats on this bot. It is based on K2 and appears to be even nastier; those articulated front wedges will be hard to beat.


Touro Light



A bot that needs no introduction. The drum spins at some ridiculously high speed, which might be Touro's one weakness as it gyro dances badly.

So far, Jolt is the only spinner with an all titanium frame, magnetic hold-down and a rear wedge, let's hope that is enough to win!
_________________
Australian 2015 Featherweight champion
UK 2016 Gladiator champion

Product review:

I am trying out these XT-150 connectors from Hobbyking as higher powered removable links:



They come in packs with 5 sets of each colour, so they are aimed at large brushless motors. The connectors are bog standard 6mm bullet connectors, with plenty of retention when plugged together. The covers come in two diameters and telescope together to give very good protection; the connectors are always recessed inside the covers and would be very difficult to short out.

The covers have a few weaknesses; they are made of a soft plastic and have quite thin walls. The plastic isn't brittle but I can see it getting cut fairly easily. The covers join together with tiny bayonets and you can chain as many as you want together. The bayonets don't look too strong and they can slide apart as you push the connectors together - epoxying the back of the connectors is a must!

The connectors push into the covers tightly but they don't really lock in; it is possible to push them back our fairly easily. Once everything is ready for final assembly, I would epoxy the connectors into the covers so everything stays in place. Apart from these small issues, the XT-150 connectors are a good choice for high powered brushless motors or battery connectors.
_________________
Australian 2015 Featherweight champion
UK 2016 Gladiator champion

quote:

---

Originally posted by Valen:
S7 top layer, attach by magic to 4130 backing plates would be nice

---

K-Torze is a beast. It's where I would like Rango to be this year. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FB7i95Mr8p8

Beating Federal like that is no small feat! Both are ridiculously agile and well driven.

I am really glad that Jolt's wheels are internal!
_________________
Australian 2015 Featherweight champion
UK 2016 Gladiator champion

I agree, it's one of the big changes in Valkiri 3 from the first 2 Valkiri's.

Lost to many drives to external wheels.

Federal-MT isn't registered yet; given that it did very well at the last Robogames, I am waiting for it to show up soon. If I am extremely lucky, some of these bots will kill each other before Jolt gets drawn against them.
_________________
Australian 2015 Featherweight champion
UK 2016 Gladiator champion

Going by the videos, it seems that the wedges on the K-Torze are vulnerable as the event goes on. In one video the whole left pair was missing and exposing the drive train. It looks to pack a punch but I think a horizontal would really make a mess of it.

Aquiles looks functional but you are right, the Alu chassis could make it weak, unless they have lots of spare pieces ready to swap in. Wheels look interesting, they might be solid rubber. Nice weak spot either way.

And Touro L is what it says on the tin. Always a challenge but not unbeatable.

Agreed, a strong horizontal spinner would do well against these vertical drums. Unfortunately, the horizontal spinners are not that great; they all have slow spin-up and reliability issues from what I can see in recent videos. Perhaps that is what I should have built .
_________________
Australian 2015 Featherweight champion
UK 2016 Gladiator champion

Progress:

Jolt's electronics module is almost finished, with carbon fibre carrier plates and most of the connectors soldered on:



Once I figure out the best wiring path back to the batteries, its time to attach some motors for a bench test.
_________________
Australian 2015 Featherweight champion
UK 2016 Gladiator champion

Hey nick. Just wondering.... when are you likely to be in US and UK?
_________________
Steven Martin
Twisted Constructions
http://www.botbitz.com

I will only be in the US for a short time - getting there the day before the event and leaving the Monday after. I fly direct to the UK have a day or two or rest and then its straight into the UK championships. After the UK event finishes on the 12th, things get a bit vague - I might visit relatives in Gibraltar, make desperate bot repairs, or just do touristy stuff (or all three!). There is a smaller UK event that is probably held rwo weeks after the championships, so I could stick around for that towards the end of April.
_________________
Australian 2015 Featherweight champion
UK 2016 Gladiator champion

Mr Mangle

Mr Mangle is all registered for the UK championships; with all the recent upgrades it should make the cut. Now it is registered I should really finish off the last upgrade - replacing all the bullet connectors with the 3-way XT60 connectors. Its a real pain getting the old wiring off the drive motors as they are covered in layers of heat-shrink tube and hot melt glue that has to be melted / scraped / sliced off. Its about half done and although work always goes slowly over Christmas, Mr Mangle should be ready to drive by the new year.

There are some plans for extensive testing and with the new on-board camera, there will be excellent video.
_________________
Australian 2015 Featherweight champion
UK 2016 Gladiator champion

You sound far to prepared for this! Mine hasn't progressed at all since last April other than blowing up my weapon ESC. The mag pulls a lot more current on 12S than I expected!

44 volts??!!! The current will be huge, are you using a custom ESC that you can add more FETs to? If you are using a commercial ESC, you can use a 2nd one one and run each ESC on a separate winding, which worked well for me.

From bitter experience with Scissorhands, you should look at buying a bag of spare brushes; even with intermittent use driving a hammer, they are going to erode pretty fast at those power levels.
_________________
Australian 2015 Featherweight champion
UK 2016 Gladiator champion