Thanks! Glen certainly had the best arena fire with that ESC, I still can't believe how much smoke it produced.
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Australian 2015 Featherweight champion
UK 2016 Gladiator champion

Sounds epic Nick, can't wait to see vid of it all.
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Miles Blow - Julie Pitts
www.mulesfilm.com.au
www.wombokforest.com.au

-Pickasso- Vivid Sportsman champion 2015

mr mangle getting its ass handed to him by 722 for the first time;

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O9hYQmC35g4&feature=youtu.be

didn't get a vid of the second time you got whipped, but I'm sure someone else will

Maybe next year you'll win the best award of all and take home the drum off championship trophy!

Serious though… was cool to see you and Glen here. hope you come back next year for more fun

Mouldy
builder of 722
Officially the best drum/beater type spinner in the world.

It was great seeing you again Nick. Both your machines got really stuck in this year. Once again impressed by how ridiculously unhurt your bots are... yay titanium!

Hope your trip back is slick and look forward to seeing you back for more in 2016.
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Online store - www.ranglebox.com
Pulsar and friends.

Scissorhands:

After all the excitement of the FRA event, I am keen to redesign Scissorhands and have a competitive horizontal spinner again - Glen can't have all the fun . When I started designing Mr Mangle, I based everything around the beater - all the dimensions, weight, motor power etc was dictated from the one part I already had. That worked out fairly well but for Scissorhands I need to start from a different place - motor torque! To get a lengthy weapon spinning up in a reasonable time takes low speed torque and I think that one of Hobbyking's big Rotomax motors will do the job; probably the 50 or 80cc models.



All those motors are too tall to fit into a thin & invertible frame, so the first thing is to totally rebuild a motor, much like Glen did for Decimator. A new and flatter endbell with an integrated pulley will get the size down and make the motor much stronger. I should be able to separate the endbell from the magnet ring fairly easily, mike all the dimensions and turn a replacement although an 80mm part will test the capacity of my tiny C4 lathe.
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Australian 2015 Featherweight champion
UK 2016 Gladiator champion

Oh come on Nick, take a break, you can be planning the death of us all one day after the event finishes I was disappointed you didn't bring Scissor Hands but after Decimator I was very glad so if you can get it working how you want... not even making everything 'Ti' will save us!

Too late Alex, I spent quite a bit of last night pushing new parts around in CAD and looking into motor rewinding I'm going for a longer but probably lighter bar than Decimator; it will probably look a lot like the existing one on Scissorhands.
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Australian 2015 Featherweight champion
UK 2016 Gladiator champion

Facepalm...

Well I am already looking more seriously at C4, but I would still enter C3 next year and build several prototypes (Plastic/Mild Steel) before I has the thing made for real (Alu/Titanium).

Got Binky to focus on though. Dad has already ordered a piece of 7075 large enough for 4 new bulkheads, no way we will be short next time!

I like to use MDF for prototyping, with aluminium scraps or plastic for the really thin bits. MDF is so easy to cut and you can glue or screw it together, plus its super cheap compared to anything else.

C3 dished out some mighty hits and was unfortunate that those screw heads got mashed - maybe you just need a full screw extractor kit for next year.

For Shiny, I want to upgrade the motors from 100W in-runners to 250W out-runners and run all the motors off a single 6S supply - no more split voltage packs. That saves a little weight and if I am really lucky, I can use a slightly higher capacity pack that will help in melees and the Gladiator event. I found some new 6S capable brushless ESCs that have instant reverse and other robot-friendly features, they should arrive for testing in two weeks.
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Australian 2015 Featherweight champion
UK 2016 Gladiator champion

Hey Nick how are you finding the brushless drive? Are they as responsive as brushed?
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Miles Blow - Julie Pitts
www.mulesfilm.com.au
www.wombokforest.com.au

-Pickasso- Vivid Sportsman champion 2015

Shiny didn't seem to drive as well as Mr Mangle, I am not sure what it was but it just seemed less responsive. You seemed to spend a long time trying to turn round and then over shooting.
There are some 6S compatible reversible esc's already on HobbyKing, Trackstar's for 1/8th scale cars. Looking at those myself for a couple of non spinner machines that will pack a punch!

They are about equal in my opinion. The brushless drives in my vertical spinners are very similar KV and power output and they use the same gearbox so its comparing apples to apples.

Other comparisons are harder; some builders have gone for high powered out-runners and lower gearing while others are using high KV sensorless in-runners and higher gearing. Each combination will have different advantages and performance. To me, large unsensored out-runners should be less responsive as they have more spinning mass and that will take more time to brake before reversing. Having said that, those Alien Power out-runners had pretty quick reversing times; its a shame the construction quality was shit.

Just to confuse things further, I saw an interesting new option at the UK event; Mini Moth is using a large diameter multicopter motor with a super low 90 KV and around 3:1 gearing.



Kane has added sensors to this motor, which relatively easy due to its size. I thought it drove very well with it's 6 wheels and had plenty of pushing power. This drive train isn't for everyone, but if you need a very flat motor & gearing solution, this would be ideal.

@ Alex: most people thought the opposite about Shiny VS Mr Mangle and they have identical drivetrains and electronics. I think that Mr Mangle has a balance problem where one wheel has a bit less grip and spins more easily. Neither bot can spin around it's centre due to the friction from the front forks.

Mouldy had a drive of Shiny and it was immediately clear that virtually all driving problems are due to the driver and not the bots; I really am a crap driver!

I am not a huge fan of those Hobbyking ESCS:



They are too tall to fit in Shiny or Mr Mangle and the power switch is just another thing to go wrong or to be forgotten - I would manage to only turn on one drive sooner or later and they can not be bypassed. Kane used them in Mini Moth with good results and I noticed that he glued the power switches to a top cover panel for easy access. The two Trackstars that I bought are not very well built and one of them had a large piece of metal swarf floating around inside it, ready to short something out.

The other brushless ESC to watch out for is Charles Gaun's Rage Bridge. There is no release date and few specifications available, but high voltage seems a leading feature.
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Australian 2015 Featherweight champion
UK 2016 Gladiator champion

Great writeup Nick, congrats on your achievements there
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<Patrician|Away> what does your robot do, sam
<bovril> it collects data about the surrounding environment, then discards it and drives into walls

Well I don't know I achieved all that much, but at least more than last year.

Today I achieved very sore legs by walking down this:



Gibraltar is a freaking huge rock and even when you catch the cable car to the top, its quite a walk down. I am now back in London and waiting for the flight back to Australia - thank god I still have four of the beers that Mario gave me for pain relief!
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Australian 2015 Featherweight champion
UK 2016 Gladiator champion

Very good summary Nick

I got a good look at Mini-Moths motors at a beetle event about a month before the champs, Kane was sticking one of the sensors back in The ESC's may not be ideal but for now given Kane and the Nippers use then (probably after checking for swarf and making some other mods) they will probably be just fine.

As for the driving of Mr Mangle and Shiny, its seems I caught you at a bad moment if Dave is able to make them both drive better.

Given I am planning to build a machine with brushless drive I will let you know how I get on