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Ondray
Joined: 06 Jul 2015
Posts: 142
Location: Newcastle
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Time for a belated post nationals damage report.
So last years nationals was me vs. the Rotwangs, this year was me vs. Miles and Jules lol.
I'll start with Potheads run. First fight was against Weasel, M&J's all body lifter. I really liked the design as it protected the lifting mechanism a bit and the paint job was great. PH got a couple of glancing hits in, I was going for the front edge of the wedge to get a harder hit. No luck. Got flipped by a good charge, no invertablility because I couldn't get the weapon pulleys low enough in time. Win Weasel.
Second fight was against Shatter, a solid little drum bot. This was an awesome fight, exactly what I wanted PH to do - big hits and keep going. I over tightened the weapon belt, which caused too much friction for the weapon to spin up, but the first hit from shatter loosened it up and it was spinning. We exchanged some big hits, PH got thrown up high a couple of times, but stayed upright thanks to the gyroscopic forces (looked awesome on video). PH had a damaged wheel and was limping, but got a big hit in and got Shatter stuck on the wall. I limped PH over for a finishing blow, but the belt fell off the weapon just before hitting! I got the hit in, but didn't have a weapon from there - which saw the fight go Shatters way really quick. For a win to Shatter. The weapon motor copped the worst of the damage, in retrospect *maybe* I should have left him stuck on the wall. Especially as this knocked PH out of the competition. Here's the damage to the weapon motor:
I had a spare motor and was able to cut out the bent bits of metal for a exhibition match the next day, I even used some washers to compensate for the bent motor mount:
The exhibition match turned out to be a 3 way rumble against Wanda and Vicious Cycle. This was pretty short, got the weapon up there were some glancing blows, Wanda ran out of batteries. VC got a massive hit in on the weapon motor, and PH got wreaked from there. Tire armor got ripped of, then the armor pod got bent onto the wheel leaving PH stuck for a win to VC. I don't know how that bot got knocked out of the main comp! With no weapon motors left and an angle grinder needed just to pull PH apart, that was the end of his spectacular nationals.
Hellamax had a better run, first match was a rematch of the last match from vivid, so an excellent opportunity to see if the upgraded wiring would help. It did. Knowing my strategy from the last match, letting flipper start lifting then use HM's speed to back off and get some hits in. Worked great HM was also pushing Flipper around the area, which did result in a drive ESC overheating in the last 30 sec(which was a problem from vivid), but I was able to nimbly limp HM to keep control of the fight so win to HM.
Next fight (I think, my memory is a bit hazy) was against Mjölnir, a mostly 3d printed bot with some Al section and a spinning hammer for a weapon made by a new guy. It was really underweight, so straight up HM was getting a good shove on and some good hits in. I had the limits really low on the controller to avoid overheating the ESC again, but it just made HM too slow. I think about halfway through the time his drive gears stripped, for a win to HM.
Then it was HM vs the drop saw on wheels that is Glitch. I was worried about this one, because HM doesn't have saw resistant top armor. Glitch was fast, and had a surprising amount of grip, I had increased my limits to let HM move quick, but I was avoiding pushing fights because of the saw and to avoid overheating the ESC again. I was also hoping I could reverse away from the saw fast enough to escape, but no. So HM got saw'd, thankfully Glitch had an abrasive saw on, which gummed up on the poly-carbonate so it didn't get through. I don't know if that was a merciful decision or not. I did figure out that if I made HM 'stand up' that I could avoid the saw, but couldn't really do anything offensive. The ESC did overheat, which left me in survival mode to make it to 3 mins. Win to Glitch.
Then was HM vs Banana Bender, M&J's massive shuffler lifter. I knew HM would have the speed advantage, but no shoving would be had. So it was all aiming for flanking attacks - I got some good flanks in. But this was a massive game of cat and mouse, and when BB got a lift in, it really got a lift in. They got entangled at one point, which I think is when the weapon motor shafts got bent in by the force of their lifter. HM's axe still isn't very powerful and when those shafts get bent it loses more power. So all the hits were doing nothing. The lifter on BB was pretty sharp which tore through a tire as well. The ESC overheated again, eliminating my ability to avoid the lifter. Win to BB.
Next fight was an exhibition match, HM vs Banana Bender again lol. This fight went down pretty much the same as the one above, I think I was little more wary of getting lifted but the axe was too weak to do anything.
Last was the Rumble. I love rumbles. HM is slowly doing better in these rumbles I think, but still got thrashed. The chains came off the weapon leaving it stuck upside down on the axe. Hydra turned into a bey-blade and got a massive hit, bending the axe and a bit of the chassis. The first time the 3mm wall Al section has been bent in nearly 20 fights (I think it's 18 ). I don't remember who won, or even if there was a winner
Again, an excellent event - lots of biff and a little glory. I've got some repairs to do, and the bots have been gathering dust for a couple of months now. My key takeaways:
Goods:
- HM's mobility, when all wheels are working.
- PH's weapon was solid, no bending in any of the big hits. Some of the bushings were a little deformed, but they are cheap enough to be expendable.
- Bot bots looked sick.
- The tire armor worked great until it got ripped off.
Bads:
- HM's ESC issue.
- The shafts on HM's weapon motors can get bent too easily.
- HM's polycarb armor is too easy to cut.
- PH not being invertable
- PH's weapon motor being exposed.
- PH's weapon motor and gearing made spin up a little too hard.
I did do a little troubleshooting of the ESC issue right after I got back, it wasn't the motors. Turns out all the TZ85's I reprogrammed still have a very conservative overheat shutoff. The ones I bought from Botbitz are fine. I need to check the firmware version I installed.
To make the armor harder to cut I think I might bolt some CF strips on top as a patch job, I could cut the panels out of some 1-2mm stainless steel but then it wouldn't be see through.
I have gone through all three of the weapon motors I bought for PH, which leaves me free to get an even bigger lower kv motor. In the repairs I think I will bring the motor inside the main channel and use some of the 50x10mm steel bar to protect the bit that sticks out. My Dad has a metal working lathe, but neither of us know how to use it (he got it 2nd hand last year). I will try to learn how to use it over summer so I can make up pulleys for myself. Which will allow me to get the spacing right so PH will be invertible and go for a lower gear reduction. I was using 4:1 with a 650kv on a 4S, I think I'll go for 5:1 on the 580kv 5050 propdrive v2. Bit more power and torque for a fast spin up. As much as I'd like to have a super hard hitting bot, it's more important to get the weapon going quickly and reliably when it protects the internals of the bot. Hopefully there'll be enough mass left for some re-reinforcements of bits that bent and the pot
For the weapon motor shafts on HM, ideally a non-worm gear motor would solve this problem. But to fit another type of motor in would be a start from scratch rebuild, which I sort of want to do. Use all the knowledge I've gained over the last two years. I was looking at some banebots gearboxes on a high reduction, like 64:1 with 770 sized motors, keeping the dual motor setup and driving the weapon straight off the gearbox shaft (so no belts or chains) with some major re-inforcement, like the two gearbox shafts into a steel pipe which sits in big bearings in a steel panel. I'd also 'invert' the body shape, instead of a 'convex' front I'd go 'concave' so it can grab other bots better for axe bashing...we'll see time and cost wise after x-mass. But for the moment I think I'll bend the worm gear motor shafts back in and support them with a steel bar on the outside of the sprocket.
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Fri Nov 10, 2017 8:40 pm |
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Ondray
Joined: 06 Jul 2015
Posts: 142
Location: Newcastle
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Getting ready for the IRDC Fight - minor repairs/upgrades on Hellamax and a complete strip and rebuild for Pot Head.
To stop the drive shafts bending on the weapon motors for HM I've made a bracket that goes over the top of the sprocket. This will stop it being cantilevered, making it harder to bend (it is still going into thin cast Ali on the other side). It will also stop the sprockets coming out, they were held in by flimsy split rings before that kept coming off. I wanted some 8mm inter diameter steel tube to fit over the shaft, couldn't find any and I was about to drill into a M16 bolt when I realized I could just stack some 8mm washers up to make a tube lol.
These are done, just need assembly, testing and reprogramming ESCs and HM is ready to fight again!
Pot head though...
Complete strip, cut the broken parts off, remake the broken parts strongererer and weld them back on. I've redone the wheel pod that got completely mangled and the tire mounts. I've got the 580kv 5050 propdrive motor, feels much more solid than the last one - all the screws are an increment bigger which should help.
Now I just need to source some Ali round bar, some 100-130mm diameter and some 50-60mm diameter. I've asked a couple of metal places in Newcastle (Ullrich Aluminum couldn't help me!) to no avail, any advice on where to get Al bar? Online or I'll drive to Sydney for a good deal.
Not a rush though, I can put a Saw Blade on Pot Head to make him a Sportsman, but haven't entered him for the IDRC yet.
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Sun Apr 22, 2018 6:48 pm |
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Ondray
Joined: 06 Jul 2015
Posts: 142
Location: Newcastle
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Battle of Southbank,
Done some last minute work before this event. Pot Head was going to be underweight so I was thinking of doing a mini bot for him but wasn't sure if I'd have a driver for it. The Monday before the event I got confirmation from my little sister, so I walked down to Kmart and got everything I needed to make a super-simple minibot. I told my sister about the bubble blower I saw there and apparently a villain from one of her favourite shows is called The Bubbler. So the theme for the bot and the weapon was decided. I glued a $5 bubble blower to a $30 RC car and gave it some LED's and a paint job...and so The Bubbler was born:
Looks pretty similar to the villain if I say so myself:
Pot Head was also getting sanded and repainted.
I almost didn’t paint him because he was so shiny and chrome. But I know that steel rusts quick.
But wait, what is that black horn looking thing I hear you ask. I also pulled the horns out of my old Volvo, one has been on my commuting pushbike for a while, and the other now gives pot-head a voice. Funny part is it was made in France, so it's a French Horn.
I also had to reprogram all my TZ85’s with the good firmware kindly provided by Marto. Which meant putting my desktop back to Vista.
9 hours of driving later I was in Brisbane with 3 bots and my Sister as a teammate.
My first draw was Pot Head and The Bubbler (PHTB) against Moist Pony’s Revenge. I was very happy about this draw, I was next to Pony’s revenge in the pits (I cannot for the life of me remember the drivers name) and really wanted a fight against the Unicorn. I got it, but not after helping get the Unicorn going before the fight. I also found out Pony’s Revenge was really underweight as it was using the laser cut plywood prototype chassis under the toddlers car. In the fight Pot Head had a clear pushing advantage and the saw was working perfectly. The Unicorns saw got disabled, so he went and hid behind Deathroll? Prompting Deathroll to drive out and knock The Bubblers bubbler off. This made the car easier for my Sister to drive, but also meant no bubbles. Which meant the fight had to end, so Pot Head rammed the Unicorn up against the wall, exploding one of the front non-drive wheels off (I actually wanted the fight to go on so I was targeting the cosmetic wheels) leaving MPR stuck on the wall for a KO. I also hilariously forgot about the horn on Pot Head so didn't honk it in this fight.
Next fight was Hellamax vs Pickasso. I was happy about this as I really like Pickasso and wanted to test Hellamax’s upgrades. Fight started, Hellamax charged in with a clear driving advantage aaaannnd bumped a plug out going to half the drive wheels in the first engagement. Doh. Was still a spectacular fight, with me defensively limping Hellamax. The two bots got entangled a couple of times, we managed to get apart the first time but the second time needed Marto to go in. The second tangling saw the torque from both weapons flexing Hellamax’s body and the 6mm polycarbonate got broken for the first time. Just before the time ran out I hooked Hellamax’s weapon on the ‘handles’ (anti-get stuck bars?) on the side of Pickasso and saw the top armour start to come off, it almost went from PG to R. 3 mins in and judge’s decision to Pickasso. The polycarb only needed a little patch job and I threw cable ties on all the important plugs:
Hellamax went up against Nighthawk next, a nice looking electric lifter bot. I was a little concerned about this as Hellamax is easy to get under, so I pictured 3 mins of getting flipped before getting a hit in. But the other team forgot to swap out a fuse on the weapon, leaving a 10A in when they needed something like 80A – so that blew on their first attempt of lifting knocking power out to the bot for a KO. I wonder if they’ll have fuses at all next time…
Next Fight was Pot Head vs Polaris. No Bubbler because I didn’t charge its batteries and it was too low to move. Probably for the best. This was an epic fight, Pot Head has a big easy frontage to get under so I knew he’d get flipped a lot. He did. The invertablilty came in handy, and I was on par with the driving at first, getting some hits in on Polaris’s wheels. But after a few flips the wheel hubs were coming loose so the drive was struggling. Then Polaris got it’s flipper on top of the saw and rammed straight up into the underside of the weapon pulley, ripping the welded bolt out and bending the pot up. This disabled the weapon and left Pot Head Upside down high-sided on his pot to get KO’d. A lot of people said it was their favourite fight, I enjoyed it. I just didn’t have a welder to put the bolt back in, so Pot Heads weapon was out of action, knocking him out of the tournament. I feel ok about Pot Head needing a worst-case-scenario hit from the most powerful sportsman in Aust to get taken out. It’s a quick fix now that I’m home, and I will also add some armor to prevent a hit like that in the featherweight fights. At least I got some honks in.
So both bots were 1:1 win:lose, which meant they were out of contention for the tournament win, but exhibitions were still fair game. I lined one up for Hellamax v Triceracop – I hadn’t fought it with the axe. Was going well early on, Hellamax had the push advantage and Tricercop was getting harder hits in with the axe. Then Triceracop dropped its weapon chain and the fight was all Hellamax, I was trying to get a lift in because without the axe Triceracop wouldn’t be able to self-right but to no avail. Went to the judge and Hellamax got the win.
Then it was a quick battery swap to get Hellamax in the rumble, and putting the charged battery in The Bubbler. I sat down on the side of the arena with my little sis and watched the bubbles blow as the rest of the bots were put in. The Bubbler didn’t even survive the initial charge of all the bots going in. Hellamax went well though, getting a Biff on many bots, but focusing on the Unicorn…along with a few other bots. People were hungry for unicorn blood. It was a short rumble, I think Steve called it off the moment there was a loose lipo. But it’s the first time Hellamax was fully functional by the end. The Bubbler left the arena in a body bag though, RIP.
So really good event, asides from a plug falling out Hellamax did great. Only small changes for Pot Head to be ready for the next Featherweight event. My little sis loved it and will hopefully be able to come to future events.
Goods:
- Hellamax’s weapon never stopped, the shaft supports done the trick. Lesson learnt – avoid cantilevering stuff where possible.
- Pot Head went really well till he got his head ripped off. The new weapon motor spun up well and has some juice.
- The Bubbler was fun.
- First event where I had more wins than losses.
- First event where my bot survived the rumble.
- First event I managed to bring a sibling along to.
Bads:
- Plugs coming out, time to get serious and cable tie all my plugs.
- The Bubbler didn’t make enough bubbles.
- Pot heads wheels coming loose (I’m not even worried about the decapitation).
- The Bubbler came home in a body bag.
Next step is to make a better Bubbler and/or a robot that would be called Spitfire – see the rules forum for what I’m thinking. I’ve reached the point of slowly building spares where I could easily build another bot, so I’m planning on making something new up for the nationals.
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Sun Jun 03, 2018 9:30 pm |
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Ondray
Joined: 06 Jul 2015
Posts: 142
Location: Newcastle
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Right, getting back into it.
Forum is a little dead, but the group chat is not a place for long posts...might have to start a youtube channel
Memory is a little hazy for the 2019 events, doing the post-event analysis was useful so I'll try to keep that up.
There was one beautiful photo from the Featherweight event, PotHead roaring in all his glory!
What I do remember is Hellamax went well in sportsmans, but wheels were breaking and the window motors were on their way out. The cast Al for the gearboxes on the window motors was slowly breaking. I tried brazing it between the 2019 events but it's really thin and greasy Al - didn't work. Hellamax was getting pretty worn out overall so it's getting retired.
Pothead. Jeeeze. So the breakage on the weapon shaft in the previous post should have ominous music over it. Turns out the welding the stainless steel shaft to the high tensile bolt created a super brittle weld. In the featherweight fights all three weapon assemblies broke at the same weld. Worth it for the photo Pot head took a fair bit of damage in that event, I think there were 4 fights and one wheel armor pod got annihilated and the whole chassis is warped. Somehow in the event that saw the wheel armor goned - the other wheel broke and the unprotected one kept working. The opponent took their weapon out in this hit. This led to a hilarious second half of the fight where the kid driving the other bot was scared of a pushing fight and was running away the whole time Still a fun event.
After the unwelcome break, it's time to get Pothead ready for another sportsmans. Drive, electronics and motors are all fine - just need to reprint the motor mounts. There was some extra semi-sacrificial armor for the open division, it was all really damaged saving the rest of the bot - so it's done its job. But has all been cut off and isn't needed for sportsmans. The saw blade mounts use those suspicious welds, and were never great to start with. So I'm redoing the weapon mounting.
New plan is to just use M12 high-tensile bolts welded to the saw blade, which go through the bot on bearings (which will be better for a saw than the bushings I was using). Surprisingly bunbuns had the bolts and bearings needed (they never had bearings before). Learning from mistakes I've got some rods for welding dissimilar metals and will really clean and preheat these before welding. Using a thinner bolt should also let me compensate for the bent chassis The entire weapon mounting 'nose' on PH is bent up from hitting verts weapon on weapon.
I've also moved house, so I've got a concrete floor and power points in the workspace, which I didn't have before - but it's not enclosed, which makes setting up and packing up a pain. I also lost my workbench, and after an afternoon of cutting, grinding and welding on PH with a low table my back and neck were unhappy so I made myself a workbench out of some scrap timber from a bed frame. Also meant I could mount my vice
So the weight loss from losing the weapon bar and extra armor on PH of coarse means I have weight for a minibot - this time I'm going to make a mini version of PH which I *should* have weight for. Using the same drill motors and a XU1 grinder for a weapon system. It'll be this weekends project. Funny part is it'll use the same 50x50x3 mm Al that I used for Hellamax, so it's really going to look like an offspring of my two bots.
Also also, I finally finished my *&%$ing phd thesis, so hopefully a proper job and a proper robot budget in the near future.
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Fri Jul 22, 2022 7:54 pm |
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Ondray
Joined: 06 Jul 2015
Posts: 142
Location: Newcastle
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Ok, so the August event in Adelaide was great. Flying with bots was new, but luckily PH fit nicely in the suitcase...
I gave up on the minibot, ran out of time. Should have tried to make a beetle or ant instead, but that's hindsight. But PH looked great with the sparkle paint.
Got 6 fights and the rumble.
First fight was against Ben's Temporal Displacement - a vertical saw bot. This fight was a massive giggle, with the first saw on saw hit taking both weapons out. The shove match was brought short by TD getting stuck on the pulley from PH, which would have been an unstick if we the weapons were still going. I tried to use PH to free TD, but no pushing power. So a lol of a win straight up.
Second fight against Hammerist, this didn't go too long, the pulley on teh weapon motor came loose after the first hit then after some pushing I drove into the pit. I had to drive into the pit once.
Funny bit here is when I yanked the power lead at the end of the fight, it broke the wiring, which led to me finding some other dodgy soldering from when I was just getting into this hobby. So there was a bit of a solder job in between fights.
Third was Polaris the CO2 flipper, who dominated with a couple of flips. One bent the pan enough to hinder inverted driving. I got lucky and he flipped himself into the pit - win PH lol.
Fourth was the WACA - a cricket themed hammer bot. I learnt in the weapon test before the match started that Polaris had bent the weapon shaft - making the belt fall off before the match started Somehow I managed to survive the 3 min without getting pitted, with the ARC rules counting this as a draw.
Fifth was a rematch against WACA, I had the weapon going this time. This was my favorite fight of the event - the weapon ran the longest and ripped the 'shin pads' to shreds. It was beautiful Lost the weapon in later in the fight, judges went to WACA because they had the pushing edge. I did learn that PH was ripping their polycarb armor up under the decorations, so there was a decent amount of damage.
Sixth was a grudge against Zhenghario - lost the weapon nut early in the fight, they lost drive. Had some good back and forth shoves.
Last was the rumble, it was sooooo good. PH went the distance, the weapon threw some nice sparks and the pit was overflowing The Beast had a mid mounted saw that done a fair bit of damage, nearly cutting through the 3mm steel wheel pods! Here's a link to Ben's vid, watch how long it take PH to get flipped...
https://youtu.be/8GJqS-nI8_U?t=1295
Overall, really awesome event. Flying with bots was a new (and expensive) experience. The return flight had me designing a new featherweight and some upgrades to PH.
Goods:
- Zero electrical/drive issues.
- Surprising shove capability with the right opponent geometry.
- The turn on the spot CG/2WD setup kept me out of the pit when I was conscious of the pit.
- Looked sweet.
- Got the tool/spares balance just right for flying I think. (Used Virgin to get 40kg of baggage, had like 35kg)
Bads:
- The weapon failing in every fight.
PH's weapon was always an issue, partly because of the compromises to have it work as sportsman and open. Partly due to crud welding and partly due to poor design. I think I'll commit PH as a spare sportsman, which lets me flip the weapon motor and run the belt under the chassis with the saw blade on a dead shaft. This means the pulley is bolted to the saw so way less chance of slipping. Also means the 'Head' can sit a little lower, improving invertability.
Being done with the phd and also being done with teaching for the year means I have lots of bot time...once I get over these spring allergies But here's the start of my design process from the flight. The idea is to have a overhead saw bot, but rather than have a fragile arm, articulate the whole robot off some forks.
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Fri Nov 11, 2022 6:30 pm |
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