ok thanks nick thats what i was thinking

See if you can get a bit of a wedge on it if you are feeling adventurous, the angled armour gives a thicker cross section for spinners to hit and there is a chance they will bounce off it and go flying. If you are good at driving (and kinda lucky) you can push most spinners around.

A plain box and a few spare drives also sounds like a damn fine first bot btw ;->
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Mechanical engineers build weapons, civil engineers build targets

what are the rules on having a wedge tho i cant find the regulations i would like to put a small angle towards the top of the robot for this purpose but i dont want to break any rules

Wedges are only banned in the Sportsman class. Any sort of wedge is fine in the regular featherweights.
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Australian 2015 Featherweight champion
UK 2016 Gladiator champion

oh shit ok sick looks like its time to redesign

spent a few hours playing last night and i have come to the conclustion that i really need more power tools lol i made up some mountings for the motors but they were just a bit flimsy going to have to re think those pulled the 18 volt motors out of my 2 kmart drilles removed the gearbox and glutched and added my 6m grub screws and they are looking really good after re thinking the design im still going for a brick but i will ad a slight slop towards the top on all for sides so hopefully the spiiners might bounce of a little better started buuilding up a wooden frame to get a rough idea of the plans to come i will have photos up soon

Getting very exited

good work hacking those drills ….they can be a pain sometimes
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Miles Blow - Julie Pitts
www.mulesfilm.com.au
www.wombokforest.com.au

-Pickasso- Vivid Sportsman champion 2015

do you guys think this will be strong enough for the frame

motors yay

frame for the base just need to make it a little smaller

probably an idea to resize your images somewhat too, if you are using imgur edit the image link a bit

so
http://i.imgur.com/4dW8psG.jpg

becomes

http://i.imgur.com/4dW8psGl.jpg

putting a l (lower case L) just before the .jpg grabs the "large" thumbnail image which is probably a better size, (h is for huge, its probably also ok but may not fit as well use preview to see how it looks)

Other than that, looks like you are off to a good start.
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Mechanical engineers build weapons, civil engineers build targets

ok thanks mate ill fix that for next time is there somewere i need to register my bot for nats

Hey Dude
Looking good…glad to see your robot is progressing.
No registration is organised yet so just keep an eye on the Nationals event thread for further details on the event.
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Miles Blow - Julie Pitts
www.mulesfilm.com.au
www.wombokforest.com.au

-Pickasso- Vivid Sportsman champion 2015

Should I tell him how much work it was to get Inspector General's drive even *semi-reliable with those large diameter white wheels on drill motors ?

Or let him learn it the hard way ?

Oh, Alright, got to help the newcomers..

It *can be done, but don't expect to just bolt them on and have it work for more than 5 minutes before smashed gears and melted motors happen.

Those big wheels have *way too much weight and rotational inertia for the umodified drill motors and gearboxes to handle.

You need beefed up gearboxes (I used AndrewMods, but I think there are newer options now.. Aaron would probably know), soft rubber bushed anti-shock motor mounts to flex a little when you go from full forward to full back (or an ESC with ramping) to avoid the reversing shock.

The stock tyres are *heavy, I drilled radial holes in mine to lighten them, for weight saving and also eases the reversing load, although it also improves the traction somewhat, which isnt always a good thing.

You cant drive them from the center plastic hub either, you'll just shred the plastic threads. You need a metal threaded insert hub with an arm from the hub to the wheels edge and a bolt to move the drive attachment point out near the edge to avoid massive torque on the hubs. (mine had a balance weight on the opposite side, since I.G. was *fast and the wheels turned quickly)

I also had an outside edge bushing, so the wheels were supported on *both sides, and so werent placing all the side load on the gearboxes. Make sure you support the gearboxes *and the motors with your mounts. Those little dinky plastite screws wont hold the motors in place under severe impacts if the mount only supports the gearbox.

The standard hooflungdung motors wont handle *any overvolting driving those size wheels.. even stock 12v is iffy. After destroying several sets, I replaced the stock lecrap motors with quality johnson branded motors with stronger brush holders, and removed the internal plastic fans (they would melt and jam the motors).

At the end of I.G's iterations, I was experimenting with a tube encasing the motors and a small 40mm fan in the middle driving air through them *all the time, since its when they are stalled and pushing on another bot that they generate the most heat, and the internal fan isnt doing anything if the motor isnt turning much.

The little Red Wheels are about as much as a stock drill setup can handle and be semi reliable. They are lightweight and limited traction, which helps save the drill motor from big loads.

Most stock drill motors are like old school rotary engines, or early turbo-4 cylinder motors. they are simple, light, cheap and powerful. The hard part is getting them to be *reliable.. Combat is really stressing them.

Usually you have to sacrifice one or more of the other 4 attributes - (making them complicated, expensive, heavy or low-powered).

If you're thinking all that sounds too complicated for a first bot, then go for the easiest - low power.... it will make life easier for your ESC and batteries too. you can turn up the volts and power later when you get some experience and feel like fixing broken stuff

drive them off low voltage to limit the power to stop them breaking, and/or limit the maximum throttle power in your radio, and put slew-rate-limiting or ramping in the radio or controller, so they reverse gently.

*edit - I just noticed Jules already reccomended that further up.. Words of Wisdom. Power is fun, but it breaks stuff.
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Great minds discuss ideas. Average minds discuss events. Small minds discuss people

All good tips Bret,

supporting the motor can is key to not killing drills in my opinion. Saves a lot of drill motors in my andrewmods, I suspect even if the motor did not give out that it was the point of flex and thus jammed up the gearbox and burnt out the motor. I have not replaced a motor in the last two nationals and the recent sportsmen (although I lost drive on one side and have yet to check why). Before that I use to replace 2 motors an event easy.

Undervaulting has had success in running larger wheels than 95mm (red wheel diameter from memory) in recent years as Brett mentioned. Reliability can be the key to winning.

Depends in part as well to how you plan to drive the robot. IG (Inspector general, Spoockie-Tech's bot) could and very often did push around other bots when needed A more submissive strategy would yield longer drill life on the large diameter wheels.

Don't be discouraged from using something, just know the limitations.

Testing at home you probably would not see any problems with the large motors as you are not stalling your motors much and potentially not going forward to reverse quite as often. Also you don't have the big hits that tend to twist everything, even if for microseconds.
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Remember to trust me, I am an Engineer.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rp8hvyjZWHs