Haven’t touched Pinscher since the event but have been reflecting on what happened and the damage sustained.
Video was great to watch so thanks for that
Started off the weekend well but was slowly losing my tread as I had glued on individual pieces of rubber to make it look COOL but suffered for it. Noticed most of Pinschers good moves where when it had a treads on the wheels in its early matches.
Biggest damage was from Davids pet spider, after having caught him with jaws got too confident and put Pinscher in its way and it took a wallop and broke the mounts from the angle grinder, was expecting this to fail oddly enough, low quality material and mass. Spent next four hours or so replacing its shoulder.
Had also burned a relay when its snout got stuck under one of Garys robots skirts, just having a sniff. Thats when it managed to self right but top jaw was stuck in the air.
Another problem was its aerial mount. Had designed a system where the aerial went through a plastic wheel so when inverted it would drag on the wheel lifting the aerial of the ground and it worked well but didn’t put on something to stop it going back against the body as I didn’t ever consider minimower and its effective weapon and Pinscher with no grip.
Pinscher was very lucky to end up in the final game considering. It scraped through on some games only because it would move on its back, was lucky here as when I lost the treads the height of the wheels come down a few centimeters and affected all the tight alignments but managed to scrape and give some wacks out.
I should mention finally that it was a bit tricky to operate its jaws in that it has extended movements so its hard to drop it in line with floor when it moves so fast. Kept overextending, lifting wheels off ground and giving others a few seconds free time to attack whilst perched on tippy toes.
Was considering skirting the wheels but have decide to keep with the exposed wheels and in process of making wheels that will save the body and are hopefully indestructible but I will have spares just in case.

Putting the lightweight on hold for a couple of weeks while I consider options so back on another tweaking session on Pinscher. Am all for reducing our weight to 12.2 so have to put Pinscher on the Jenny Craig again, redistribution of weight and Nicads will bring it down.
Unfortunately its Mask and face might have to go, weight has to come out somewhere and theres some steel in the jaws that doesnt really aid in strength.
This final reworking will make Pinscher even more aggressive. The new face will incorporate deflector shields for spinners and a lot more fangs. It will still have personality but more like a hellbringer movie. Limiting the range in the Jaw will allow me to increase its power by a factor of about 4 or 5 so its going to be freakin fast and even more powerful.
The bar seems to be rising all the time and there is no room for hesitation or delays in matches so being quick aggressive and assertive are whats required.
Every dog has its day and Pinshers still a puppy. Grrrrrrrrrr
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Bots that do not destroy you, only make you stronger.

Have cut up some plates for the jaw armour.
Took an old saw blade like IG's and with a grinder cut 2 matching side panels from it. Straight on one end, curved on the other

They will be attached going up like a wedge as well as flareing out at the sides. Idea is to deflect spinning blades off the jaws, avoiding absorbing the energy. Angles are good for this.

The toothed part points down and will work better for grabbing as it will have a broader grip area and the teeth point back so grip should be good.

Some robots have gotten stuck on the fangs on the lower jaw so off they will go. Makes more sense to be able to release by lifting the top jaw.
Not much control when you are stuck.

Just need to sus out the height of peoples blades HINT HINT.
Want to make sure the plates are high enuff
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Bots that do not destroy you, only make you stronger.

Pinschers has had some surgery, Gave it some pain killers and then with an angle grinder cut off its ears then cut off its face.
It yelped a little but soon got to like it.

Smoothed it down and prepared it for its new front end.

Been trying different ways of attaching the new parts, mostly going over scenarios with El Bravo, spinners and Minimower.

Jaws took a good pounding and stood up well so they only need shieding and maybe a long rake to push spinners away. Thinking of some sort of attachment for spinners. even if I literally have to bolt on a cutting board to the front to take the initial impacts but some sort of disposable armour.

Have kept its face and mask so should pop up again in the future somewhere.
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Bots that do not destroy you, only make you stronger.

Have decided to strip down Pinscher and replace the anglegrinders, gearboxes, motors and wheels.
Never liked the XU-1 but have learnt from them..

Have a nice set of Anglegrinders that I picked up for $4.00 each from flea market which are so much better than the XU-1 type which where $20.00 each new.
Bit of advice to anyone using angle grinders, its all about the mounting method.

After having broken some mounts and having seen others brake theirs, feel really comfortable with the new ones. Mainly because of better alloys, more mass and an extra 3 tapped holes on the face to help take a huge impact before anything brakes.
Total of 9 potential mount points as opposed to the normal 6.

The XU-1 did have a good method of attaching the gearbox so the only bitch is coming up with a completely new system to attach the drill gearboxs but thats the price of an upgraded drive system.
Wheels are also going to be shock absorbing so dont expect too much problems.
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Bots that do not destroy you, only make you stronger.

Reading the forum on the recent fights has motivated me to strip down Pinscher and give its frame a much needed bath.

In doing so have found other things that went wrong mainly the mounting screws of the drll motors had come loose from the gear box and a part of the angle grinder was broken inside. The part that lets you lock the gears so you can replace a wheel.

Could have all happened when the mounts broke as I realised what damage had happened with the fight against arachno but i kept putting it in front of Arachno saying "please sir, may I have another". Am not that precious about damage done, thats how you learn things.

Just as well had decided to update the grinders. Seems the XU1 is crappier than I thougt.
Will be mounting the new grinders on first and then trying new concept for attaching drill gearboxs onto it. would like to put on scooter motors but might be pushing the weighht.
About to check if they share the same mounting holes.
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Bots that do not destroy you, only make you stronger.

Got the the new angle grinders and wheels done at Garys and can start to put it back together. Hubs have been reinforced from what was learnt driving KingPin and Garys solution looks very cool. As does IG2 and Reboot?, Was flattered to see that my methods have influenced him in ways.

New wheels have a steel hub with 4 studs holding a disk made from cutting board the size of a CD, this holds on the outer rubber. just have to secure the rubber.
Wheels look very beefy and give the robot a wider footprint.
Will start putting the parts together and then work out from there.
Probably have to reset motors to fit so might have to change things around.

Have to decide if I should set the wheels further back as well as its original idea was to lean forward not needing a rear castor but would lke to get it up and running soon so have to see about that.
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Bots that do not destroy you, only make you stronger.

Pic time of Pinschy.

http://robowars.org/forum/album_pic.php?pic_id=339

Nothing is really bolted together as am just testing how everything fits first.
This would be the fourth revision and the main changes so far are complete drivetrain overhaul, weapon enhancements and misc.

Note on the front am playing with the idea of using the safety guards from angle grinders as a Heavy duty mudflap. think they should work well as they are light and strong.
Rubber still needs to be secured to the rim but thought I would show the pieces sep first.

Prioritys on the rebuild have been drive then weapon and any weight left over goes to rear armour.
Will be moving motors further back into body to place a uni joint between them and the angle grinders. This will improve efficiency of power transfer so will end up with a very strong and powerful drive train thats efficient as well.
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Bots that do not destroy you, only make you stronger.

Started connecting the remaining drive components and was pleased that its going back together quickly without mods considering everything has changed parts or positions.

Main reason was for the idea of the uni joint.
Its a real pain having to line drive components up so needed an easy solution.

This came about from the development of T34 and Pinschers first weapon assembly and have learnt lots of tricks on using them so I thought i would put up this post as a guide to anyone interested.
All u really need is an angle grinder.

http://robowars.org/forum/album_pic.php?pic_id=344

Firstly grind threaded part of drill gearbox into square to match part of uni joint. (Doesnt have to be that precise but it helps to look at it front on a and use the reversed thread of the drill as a visual guide.)

Take apart end piece from uni joint sliding it on the grinded drill end. (Optional. U can use the bolt from the drill to lock this into position or just place it loose as a centreing guide. once the uni joint is put back together this bolt cant come out so have used this in many ways)

Do the same with the angle grinder end (Have had it welded myself to lock the whole drivetrain together but not always required) and thats it. Drill gearbox and motor need minimal mounting and are shock resistant and can flex with the body whilst maintaining high transfer effiency.
Minimal wear and tear on your drills and emphasis is purely focused on mounting the angle grinders with bonus of room for misalignment.

Never has Pinschers drive been so efficient. The motor doesnt vibrate through the body and was hardly mounted at all when tests where done.
This is the point in the robot that has failed before in at least 4 fights with previous methods so happy to have a solution that after all the tests is really simple to do and work on.
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Bots that do not destroy you, only make you stronger.

now all you need to do is add the triple hydraulic suspension!

theres some nice engineering in there, i always would have thought the uni joint would make the system even more innefficient but apparently not.

one thing thats been on my mind for a while now is what batteries have you been using in pinscher so far? i thought i heard mention of slas somewhere and also what voltage drills are you using?
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www.demon50s.com - Minimoto parts
http://www.youtube.com/user/HyzerGlen - Videoooozzz

now all you need to do is add the triple hydraulic suspension!

theres some nice engineering in there, i always would have thought the uni joint would make the system even more innefficient but apparently not.

one thing thats been on my mind for a while now is what batteries have you been using in pinscher so far? i thought i heard mention of slas somewhere and also what voltage drills are you using?
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www.demon50s.com - Minimoto parts
http://www.youtube.com/user/HyzerGlen - Videoooozzz

The way I justified the uni joint is this.
IN a highly efficient drivetrain then its questionable to use but if your drive train is suffering from inefficiencies from misaligned components and extra friction losses then it will improve the overall efficiency by correcting the extra load areas.
So its only efficient when used on an inefficient system.

In my particular case you have to imaging lining up a drill with an angle grinder, how acurate do you think you can be considering things changing shape and metals bending.
This way I dont have to be too critical when mounting components and at the end of the day I figure its a system used in cars and trucks for the same reasons.

In regard to batteries used SLAs until recently and didnt they all die in capacity.
Have started using NIcads.
Drills are 12v overvolted to 24 but am starting to think of how u have got cobra setup and thinking of changing motors and voltage to get more time.
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Bots that do not destroy you, only make you stronger.

Not much to report on Pinscher but have been putting together a videoclip of highlights from its 2 events.
Finally decided on a music style and have put together an intro and timed it a bit to the music. Its very pumping, maybe too agro but will wait and see reaction.

Will work on it a bit more and then was wondering how I could put it up for people to download. Its 2 and a half minutes at VideoCD size making it about 28megs.
Its pretty cool I think but NIN is not to everyones taste.
Anyway thought I would ask before I finish it if anyone can assist in temporarily putting it up somewhere.
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Bots that do not destroy you, only make you stronger.

Well agro suits robot video's beautifully. One of the battle at the beach vids i have seen had a rock sounding band which was perfect for the vid. Plus any action with pincher and maybe the lightweight is cool by me.
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Andrew Welch, Team Unconventional Robotics

quote:

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Originally posted by andrew:
Well agro suits robot video's beautifully.

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