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Jolt & friends - Team Overkill - NSW
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maddox



Joined: 21 Dec 2006
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Location: Belgium


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Looks perfect to me.

Post Mon Apr 17, 2017 9:15 pm 
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Nick
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Joined: 16 Jun 2004
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Location: Sydney, NSW


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The crappy test rig or the squishy wheel rim? Laughing

Test update: one tread pattern peaked at 6Kg, 50% more than a Colson so that is the clear winner - exactly which one it is remains a state secret until the next event. The next step is to make some proper hubs to replace the printed ones and find the best glue to hold everything together. It should be possible to do a realistic driving test; if I put a full sheet of 3mm MDF on the floor and place some washers or nuts under it to simulate an uneven floor, I can drive Mr Mangle over it with Colsons and then the new wheels to see if there are any improvements. If that works out, the 3D printer will be running continuously for weeks!
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Post Tue Apr 18, 2017 12:32 pm 
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maddox



Joined: 21 Dec 2006
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Both.

Post Tue Apr 18, 2017 3:10 pm 
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Nick
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Joined: 16 Jun 2004
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Location: Sydney, NSW


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Wheels:

I made this simple jig for glueing the flexible rim to the hub:





That lets me apply glue to both surfaces and slide them together with less mess and oozing. Pulling the bamboo skewers out afterwards needs a vicegrip though. A larger version of the jig will do the same job glueing the rim and the outer tread.

The 3D printer is busy making a batch of narrower rims to fit the original Mr Mangle for a more realistic driving test - I'm not going to fall for the "too dangerous to test outside the arena" failure Smile

Mr T:

The wiring is almost ready to test; one motor sensor lead is a fraction too short and I have to steal a lead from Shiny.

Sawnado:

There are plans for a new version of Sawnado but for Vivid its just getting brushless drive. There are two motors to try out; the NTM 35-42 and the smaller Scorpion 25-20. The NTM will have to take a huge over-volting from the recommended 3 to 4S up to Sawnado's 6S battery. The Scorpion is already wound for 6S but will have lower speed & torque.
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Post Thu Apr 20, 2017 2:58 pm 
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Nick
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Mr T:

The drivetrain wiring is finally complete and the wheels are turning Very Happy. After the wiring operation, the CAD for the metalwork has been tweaked to make servicing easier and fix a few problems.; rapid prototyping is all well 'n good, but the revisions are now into the double digits and I need to get the parts water jetted ASAP.



The next step for the electrics is to program and wire the Arduino that controls the Burket valve. Its simple in theory but as I have never used the Arduino IDE there are bound to be problems.

Sawnado:

The new brushless gearmotors are 3/4 done; the 2nd motor just needs mounting on the P60 gearbox:



The Propdrive (NTM) motors are very well made and I hope they cope with the over-volting.
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Post Fri Apr 21, 2017 7:49 pm 
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miles&Jules
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They look solid🤖
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Post Tue Apr 25, 2017 12:50 am 
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Nick
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Joined: 16 Jun 2004
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Location: Sydney, NSW


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Wheel update:

I started making hubs and flexible rims for the Original Mr Mangle today. The wheels are a bit thinner than the ones in Mangle 2 and the spiral spokes had to be almost twice as thick to compensate for the smaller face width:



The hub is made from glass filled polycarbonate, which is extremely impact resistant and is easy to glue. To help the rim stick, I added a coarse spiral around the hub - even without glue, the added friction makes the rim very hard to turn on the hub. The down-side of the polycarbonate hub is extra weight; even with recesses in both sides of the hub and all the holes in the rim, the wheel still weighs 3 grams more than the equivalent Colson wheel.
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Post Tue Apr 25, 2017 9:36 pm 
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Nick
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Mister T:

I finally submitted the CAD for the frame to get water jetted:



33 parts and 1,000 x 500mm - what was I thinking? Its my very own Juicero over design project Laughing
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Post Wed Apr 26, 2017 2:05 pm 
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Nick
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Suspension Perfection:

I fitted the narrow wheels into Shiny (it was less work than Mr Mangle) and the wheel's squishiness perfectly matches the bot's weight.



When one of the front forks is lifted, I can see one wheel compress and the other one relax so that they both stay on the floor.



There is about 3mm of height compensation before the wheels start to lose contact with the floor, which doesn't sound like much but its a huge improvement on the Colson wheels.
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Post Wed Apr 26, 2017 5:03 pm 
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Valen
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damn, that looks good
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Post Fri Apr 28, 2017 9:32 am 
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Nick
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Sawnado:

Sawnado is out of storage and back in the workshop Smile. Work started on the brushless motor conversion and I soon found an issue; while the Propdrive outrunner is almost the same dimensions as a 540 brushed motor, the wiring doesn't fit in the confined space of the wheel pod. At best, it would rub on the motor case so a new solution is needed - here are the options:

1) Hack up the wheel pod so the wiring fits. Possible, but needs a mill so it could take some time.

2) fit a smaller diameter motor that allows extra room for wiring. Easy & quick to try.

3) Make entirely new wheel pods with more space inside. This is the direction for Sawnado 2 but probably a waste of materials for this version.

4) Still thinking up wild new ideas Wink

Option 2 is the best for now as I already have a pair of smaller motors to try out immediately. The Propdrive 35-42 motors will work in the next version of Sawnado or as spares for Mr Mangle or Shiny. I tested out some mods on them:



These printed fans give a small but noticeable improvement and will let the motors run cooler. I was expecting more improvement but there must be a limit on how much air can be sucked through the narrow gap in the motor.
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Post Sat Apr 29, 2017 10:53 am 
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Nick
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Progress:

Its been a shitty week here at Team Overkill including having one of the cats (Chewy) run over, but some progress has been made:



Sawnado:
Adapting Sawnado to brushless drive ran into more problems. The smaller Scorpion motors have new shafts and pinions but their mounting holes don't match up with the P60 backplate. Glen is very kindly CNCing a new set to fix that. I had a sneaky idea to improve the wheel pods: there is a power outlet in the locker where the mill is stored. If its active, I can take some tooling over and quietly machine out some titanium so that the motor wiring fits properly. There are new ESCs arriving next Tuesday and then all the featherweights will run the exact same part - very handy when you need a get an emergency spare ESC to fix another bot.

Mr T:
I had an extended driving test of the MDF prototype. When the wheels weren't spinning on the glassy smooth workshop floor, it drove really well and low speed control is excellent. That just leaves the Burket control electronics to finish up: the PCB is done and just needs programming - will try to get that sorted over the weekend.

Mr Mangle:
Still another round of CAD tweaks Rolling Eyes. The slots & tabs all had to be edited as the waterjet cutter automatically adds clearance and I had to take my own clearance out to avoid a very sloppy fit between parts. I also burrowed into the titanium off-cuts heap and found material for extra front forks. Now there will be extra thick forks for flipper fights, extra long forks for wedge fights and super low floor clearance forks for wedge fights.

CNC:
The power supplies for the Clearpath servos are mounted in their box and the final parts for the mill are back from storage - now I just need to get the huge mill enclosure finished. The original plan was to assemble the CNC mill inside the enclosure as I can lift the individual parts but not the whole thing. The new plan is to assemble everything on the bench and use a hoist to get the mill into the enclosure, which should save time.

The PrintrBot upgrades are moving along: I threw the entire printer in the bench drill and *very* carefully drilled mounting holes to attach it to the new laser-cut base. That worked out neatly and now its time to hook up all the electronics - SO MANY wires to connect!
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Post Sat May 06, 2017 7:49 pm 
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miles&Jules
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Joined: 19 May 2010
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Sad news about Chewy Crying or Very sad
Think your just going to have to take Sawnado back to brushed😱
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Miles Blow - Julie Pitts
www.mulesfilm.com.au
www.wombokforest.com.au

-Pickasso- Vivid Sportsman champion 2015

Post Sat May 06, 2017 10:09 pm 
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Nick
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Joined: 16 Jun 2004
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Nooooo!
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Post Sat May 06, 2017 10:15 pm 
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Nick
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Joined: 16 Jun 2004
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Location: Sydney, NSW


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CNC of death!

I just dodged a bullet today! While assembling the power supplies for the CNC mill, I noticed that there was a difference; one had a sheet of plastic insulation between the PCB and the other didn't on closer inspection, at least on component lead was actually touching the heatsink, making it live Shocked and other leads had less than 1mm of separation:



Checking with the multimeter confirms the short to the heatsink and checking the other PSU shows the same point is open circuit, so there is definitely a problem. The short is at the lower DC voltage end of the PSU but the chances of a fire or electrocution are high; I hope that Clearpath swaps the PSU without any fuss.
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Post Sun May 07, 2017 7:33 pm 
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