Really sad to hear the feather division getting canceled this year... Did they say if it will return in the future?

The exact statement was this: 'Thank you to everyone who have sent in their featherweight robots, however as we are so close to our next studio record in May we are going to push this until after the current series has been filmed.'

That is a bit vague; it could mean a separate featherweight show or it could mean featherweights are combined with the next series of HW bots. Or it could mean they haven't decided anything.

Whatever happens, I am going to be ready with the new version of Mr Mangle; the final piece of titanium just left the US (a week late) and the printed wheels are looking more & more plausible. Another possibility is magnetic hold-down. It probably won't fit into the weight limit but there are mounting holes in the frame just in case - the more options, the better.
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Australian 2015 Featherweight champion
UK 2016 Gladiator champion

You could embed neodymium magnets in your wheels.

I tried that once - it can work but is not weight efficient and tears up the wheel tread. When you have magnets right in the wheels, only the one nearest the floor is actually doing anything and the rest are dead weight. Its not too bad if the wheels are small but the weight really adds up for a typical wheel. Then there is all the magnetic crud that gets embedded in the wheels. It would be more of an option in a pushy bot where the whole point is to have maximum traction, but for a spinner, it uses up too much weight

It doesn't provide as much down-force, but placing a stationary magnet close to the wheel is lighter and more reliable, plus its much easier to make.
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Australian 2015 Featherweight champion
UK 2016 Gladiator champion

Aslong as those wheels stay pink i will be happy with the look of your new mangle 😜
Also how big is ya cnc mill going to be ? Looks mega- im thinking mill your rumble in the jungle heavyweight out if a solid block🛠
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Miles Blow - Julie Pitts
www.mulesfilm.com.au
www.wombokforest.com.au

-Pickasso- Vivid Sportsman champion 2015

The CNC mill is based on a Sieg SX3; about the same size as Glen's mill. The same enclosure will also have the old RF31 manual mill and it takes up less total space to have one large enclosure rather than two smaller ones. There will also be storage shelves inside for the heavy accessories like vices and the rotary table and an electric hoist to help move hem on & off the mills. There is quite a bit of room underneath and that will have draws for cutters and small accessories. Its all about ease of use; if everything is quick & fun to operate, I might actually make more stuff

Pink wheels for now; once the reel is used up they will be a dark colour that doesn't show dirt & damage so much.
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Australian 2015 Featherweight champion
UK 2016 Gladiator champion

'Nuff said!
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Australian 2015 Featherweight champion
UK 2016 Gladiator champion

Get grey and tell everyone its a colson 😜
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Miles Blow - Julie Pitts
www.mulesfilm.com.au
www.wombokforest.com.au

-Pickasso- Vivid Sportsman champion 2015

Great idea - I can spend hours telling people how hard it was to laser cut all the hexagons out of the Colson.
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Australian 2015 Featherweight champion
UK 2016 Gladiator champion

Quick update:

The CNC stand is prepped for painting and I started working out how the plywood lining will fit:



The choice of metal primer was bad. I bought a fast drying primer without reading the label carefully - it needs acetone to clean the brushes and has some user-unfriendly ingredients. After painting just the end of the enclosure, I had a horrendous solvent headache .

The titanium for Mr Mangle 2 is arriving this week and I want to send off a huge cutting job for Mangle, Mt T and the antweight arena early next week.

The new Lipo for Mangle has shipped; I am really keen the see how the Revolectrix packs perform.
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Australian 2015 Featherweight champion
UK 2016 Gladiator champion

Sick day:

Due to feeling decidedly dodgy, not much bot building has been happening this week. I did some experiments with the 3D printer to find a setting that lets Ninjaflex peel off the bed without tearing it:



These 10 cent sized micro wheels are great tests; the latest one comes off the bed relatively easily . A new roll of Ninjaflex Cheetah filament is arriving tomorrow; apart from being a more sensible black colour, it is softer at 85A shore and should provide the same amount of flex in a smaller space.
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Australian 2015 Featherweight champion
UK 2016 Gladiator champion

Cheated by cheetah:

The roll of cheetah flexible filament arrived and was immediately thrown on the printer. I had suspicions about the filament even before it printed and the test print confirmed them; this stuff is much HARDER than Ninjaflex, not softer as advertised .

Some digging on Google uncovered the problem: the reseller swapped the hardness figures around the wrong way and Cheetah is 10 units harder than Ninjaflex, not softer. Its still a pretty good filament with excellent cut and abrasion resistance, near perfect layer bonding and prints relatively fast. If the reseller won't exchange or refund it, it might make useful antweight armour, layered over a harder core of nylon.
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Australian 2015 Featherweight champion
UK 2016 Gladiator champion

Frankenprinter:

More parts arrived for the Printrbot upgrade; its morphing from a Printrbot Simple into a Printrbot fairly complex . Here are the major parts laid out:



The extra parts fit in a laser-cut MDF base:



And once everything is assembled, it will look something like this:



The heated bed upgrade also expands the X axis to a handy 250mm.
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Australian 2015 Featherweight champion
UK 2016 Gladiator champion

getting your monies worth out of that laser ;->
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Mechanical engineers build weapons, civil engineers build targets

Using one CNC machine to build another one is a time honoured tradition; after five or six generations I should end up with a DIY Hass .
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Australian 2015 Featherweight champion
UK 2016 Gladiator champion