Ok, since im geting a bit sick of pushybots, (no matter how fun it is to ride them) Catalyst is being resurected in vert spinner form (VD3 made me do it ). It will use two 12V XU1 drills for drive, two Dewalt 18V motors on the disk, and a 24V Nicad battlepack (or two if I have the weight).

Im hoping for it to be reasonably destructive and to look a bit like this . . .

http://www.geekmonkey.net/gmrs/chesbot.jpg

Im not 100% sure at the moment about what im going to do to get the power from the Dewalts to the motors. Problem is the shafts and gears on the ends of them that I would have to remove. The shaft is only about 7mm long and 5mm wide, which seems too small to stick a pulley striaight onto.

The easiest way of getting the belt on there is using the gearboxes designed to mate to the motors, and a shaft with a double D on both ends to join both gearboxes together and mount a pulley onto it. Thats wasting a fair bit of power in friction losses though, gearing it down to 2000rpm throught the gearbox, then back up to 6000rpm via belts, and obviously I want as much power as possible getting to the disk. Im not too sure if that made any sense but ill draw a diagram if anyone needs it. Any suggestions would be helpful.

BTW, whats the best way to mount a disk to a shaft, other than welding it? I know I could use two shaft collars and washers and call it a friction clutch, but that seems unnessacery and breakable, considering it will be belt driven, which absorbs most of the shock.

Info on the Dewalts can be found here
http://www.robotcombat.com/marketplace_dewalt.html
http://www.robotcombat.com/store_dewalt_gearboxes.html

Im using the new style 18V Dewalts.
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Jeff Ferrara
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Last edited by ffej on Mon Apr 18, 2005 12:47 am; edited 2 times in total

sounds good dude,

i hope all goes well. if u require assistance please ask as vetr spinner would be nice. How do u plan on making the disc weopon?

ALso i have some awesome idea's for singularity on how to improve and get weight down.
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Andrew Welch, Team Unconventional Robotics

we weld our wep to the shaft
however our wheels have the pully and wheel in one peice
the wheel and pully then have a bearing onto a static shaft.

perhaps you can mix and match to suit?
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Mechanical engineers build weapons, civil engineers build targets

The best way to mount it would be to have the pully atached to the disc and the bearing in the disc so it can free wheel over a fixed shaft ..

That way iff the shaft gets a bit bent ect the disc will still spin and wont go wobbly and out of ballance .
I was going to do this with Vertical limits but the steel was just way too hard for me to machine out to take the bearings so i managed to drill it centre and just welded it to a shaft and put the bearings as close as i could on the frame .

Ok, an update

I've decided on a change from the drill motors to the oatley scooter motors, simply for reliability on 24V, and the fact that XU1's were really begining to give me the shits. They weigh a fair bit more than the drill motors, but im hoping they will be worth it. I was going to go with the SS2 gearboxes and HTI motors, but it seems that they use the same crappy gears as the XU1's, which sort of defeats the purpose of moving away from the drills to start off with.

Im still going to use 2X Dewalt 18V drill motors for the weapon motors, I was going to go with the 450W ~2.6kg oatley scooter motor for ease of use, but the Dewalts really kick its ass hands down in the power to weight ratio stakes, weighing only ~0.45kg and producing about 1100W . . .

I have ordered both the scooter drive motors and the V belt weapon pulleys. The weapon ive decided on is a pair of smaller vertical spinning disks spinning faster, rather than just the one big disk, Village Idiot style. This should give a greater strike area, and make getting the weapon to the opponent easier.

I managed to get the gears off the dewalts with a bit of work with the dremel, a flat head screwdriver, and a pair of pliers. In the end this was a fair bit easier than I had expected, and worked out well. Im still suprised at how much power these small motors have . . . using two for the weapon should work out well.

Not sure how im going to put together the rest of the chassis yet, but it all should come together once I get the parts and lay them out. Ill post up some pics of the setup when my pulleys and drive motors come in.
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Jeff Ferrara
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Another update.

Well, as it currently stands, Catalyst Evo is at about 70% done . . . all the chassis is done bar the top cover, the weapon is pretty much done, all I have to do is bolt it onto the chassis and make up a blade. I reverted back to using the XU1's instead of the scooter motors, mainly because of the huge weight difference. I know its going to come back and bite me in the ass, but oh well.

The Dewalts im using for the weapon have crazy amouts of power, ill stick the clamp meter on them tommrow and get an accurate reading, but I think there drawing in excess of 120A on startup.

Without the top armour or blade it weighs 12.4kg . . . so im going to have to get onto lightening it or have a really light weapon . . . but then, spinning at ~5000 RPM, I dont think its going to matter if it only weighs a kilo, its still goimg to do some damage . . .

Anyway, ill let the pictures do the rest of the talking . . . sorry there such crap quality . . . but I coulnt find the usb cord for the olympus and had to use the al cheapo $40 webcam thing . . .


http://www.robowars.org/forum/album_pic.php?pic_id=732

http://www.robowars.org/forum/album_pic.php?pic_id=731

http://www.robowars.org/forum/album_pic.php?pic_id=730
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Jeff Ferrara
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Thats looking very lovely there Jeff

Reminds me of a super heavy vetr spinner in frame look and all, something stryker i think it was called.

Only things that cancern me is with the 3mm ali frame and there being little air gap between frame and delicates like nicads and rs80d etc so if u get a massive hit (ala Jolt) it could dent the frame in enough or cut through more than just some ali frame which is never good

Also with weopon the motors r just out in the open which isnt good for pricey items like them. If u r having problems with weopons and that maybe just get a piece of 8-10mm steel bar and use it instead of a discy weopon as its easier and maybe lighter.

Love it so far though Jeff.
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Andrew Welch, Team Unconventional Robotics

There is an airgap around the RS80D, and on all bar one side of the batteries that I couldnt aviod . . . im making the ali double thickness there so it should slow it down somewhat. . . . the Dewalts are mounted to be repositioned in futher when I get shorter belts, so that should fix that problem.

Ill get a video of the spin up later today, its crazy!
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Jeff Ferrara
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Nice work Jeff - that's going to be a worthy competitor and I'm thinking that all our bots will need major panel beating after this event!

Like Andrew said, please protect those expensive bits; those Dewalts would be hard to miss. The rest of the chassis looks very low to the ground and probably too low for Jolt to hit (which was your plan, of course )
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Australian 2015 Featherweight champion
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Sure was, but with those new wedges, I think im going to be seeing a lot more of those new tool steel teeth that I would like.

Will be interesting to see the difference between a vert spinner hit and a horizontal hit on cobra, hopefully we dont all get owned (chances are we will tho, lol.)
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Jeff Ferrara
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Last edited by ffej on Mon Apr 18, 2005 1:07 pm; edited 1 time in total

Ahh, just forget about the wedges and box rush me !

My prediction is that if any two of the spinners are relaible enough to last a full match against Cobra, it will be knocked out. If Catalyst has anything like the throwing power of Orbit, then Cobra will be getting plenty of air time
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Australian 2015 Featherweight champion
UK 2016 Gladiator champion

i wouldnt mind a crack at cobra as eben thopugh Orbit wont do much damage (COBRAS A TANK) it still should be able to make it jump or bounce or something. Or if i get a hit on the arm the leverage should turn him over nicely.
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Andrew Welch, Team Unconventional Robotics

Yeah, the arm is the best point to attack - I ripped that hammer off easily last year and a vertical spinner could go to work on the arm itself. If you flipped Cobra near the wall, there would be a chance of propping it and than you would get a taste of that soft polycarb
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quote:

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I ripped that hammer off easily last year

---

Ok, well after my worst result ever at a competiton ( you cant get much worse than last can you ?) its time to rething a few things with this design. I did some weapon testing after the event, and found that the Dewalts are amp hungry beasts!

They discharged a 24V CP3600 pack in less than a minute! I still have to get my hands on a clamp meter to get a true measurement, but the current was making a 10G wire glow and the insluation smoke pretty badly, not to mention getting the pack the hottest I have ever gotten it (couldnt hold my finger on the outside cells for more than a second, the middle cells must have been seriouslt toasty).

I decided to test with just one motor, and it seemed to help the pack's cause a bit, lasting about 2 minutes before flattening it too. The spinup time didnt really change much between one and tweo motors, under 3 seconds to very close to top speed with two, and about 4 seconds with just the one, so it looks like I will be dropping to just one motor next event, which should help out my weight problems a lot, as that gets rid of a pulley, part of the shaft, a belt, a motor support, a motor pulley and the motor.

I have to properly affix the bar to the shaft collars this time, as the insluation tape just doesnt cut it as a clutch. Im thinking ill either weld or bolt the collars to a steel bar and then use them as a clutch, as they still slip a little bit no matter how tight you make them.

I will also be changing from steel box section at the front, to ali with a lot of reinforcing, Plan B went straight through the steel and bent the supports, so I figure I might as well make it out of ali and make a spare or two as the extra strenght of the steel was still no match for the power.

The RS80D needs repairing after I killed it, so if I cant get the replacement parts, ill be sending it off to the US to get repaired for some stupidly high price. I think I might also try and get a spare, because I can see it happening again, and if it doesnt, then I have a controller for my lightweight.

The skids I was using didnt work at all as skids, they were just too high friction and had weigh too much weight on them. So im going to get some ball casters and use them in the skids place. That should then make it so I can actually drive the bot . . .

I need to add some wedges too, otherwise I will get owned by the ultra low 50mm cobra next event . . .

Anyway, a hell of a lot to do, and thanks to school / work, no time to do it. Im sure a lot of you can relate to that . . .
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Jeff Ferrara
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