http://www.choice.com.au/viewarticleasonepage.aspx?id=104667&catId=100168&tid=100008&p=1
Good read, should help you chose next time you need some for your bot.

On topic, what drills have people tried and had good/bad results apart from the trusty XU1's?
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Ozitzu seem prity good though their suport/info center is kinda screwed up (been over 6months since i enquired about just getting the motors and gearboxes and i got $hit all of a responce :S) but yeah their practally the exact same as the XU-1's
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as a shadow is seen and not heard i am here
-Waddy the phoenix

I brought a few $35 12v black and decker drills same as xu1 motors but 700rpm and i have still got the origianal 4 in hell razer from when i first built it and they have had a hard life and i have eaven ridden on them and yet they are still in great condition.

Pitty they were only a promo thing cos they are good motors.
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Tim Team Reaper.

hey. My dad's got a spare drill in his garage in roughly working condition. I'm tossing up wether 2 use it as a drive motor or weapon motor on my robot. Oh by the way my weapon is gonna be a spinning bar like on jolt.

If you only have 1, then you need another matched type to use it as drive. Having different drive motors from one side to the other will make steering very difficult.

Spinning Bar weapons are *very* hard to make work reliably because of the shock forces involved. Theres a little bit more to it than hooking a motor up to a bar and causing carnage.

First Time Bot Builders with spinning bars usually do a big hit or two then break themselves and are out of the game until the rebuild.

Are you sure you want your first bot to that unreliable ? a less hand-grenade-like and more driveable and survivable bot design will probably give you more enjoyment while you find your feet.

Low-power friction drive drums (Minimower style) can be quite effective and fun as a first bot.
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IMHO, drums are harder to make than bar spinners; the chassis needs to be more accurate and stiffer and a good drum is hard to make unless you can weld reasonably well. The only hard part on a belt driven spinner is the weapon axle; attaching the bar can be tricky but if a solid pulley is used as a mounting flange, even that is not too hard, certainly easier than fabricating a drum.

@ T Bag: a drill motor won't work at all for a weapon drive, get a second identical drill for drive motors or pick a new set from Bunnings or Dick Smiths.

@ Spockie: perhaps some of us experiences builders should look at writing some specific how-to guides for particular parts of bots? You did that excellent one on drill motors and I think there was one on Red Wheels that could go on the Wiki. I just started one on "bar spinners for $100".
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Australian 2015 Featherweight champion
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quote:

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@ T Bag: a drill motor won't work at all for a weapon drive, get a second identical drill for drive motors or pick a new set from Bunnings or Dick Smiths.

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I am not familiar with Budgetbot; got any photo links? I am talking about consistent, match-winning spinners along the lines of Plan B. Jake & Russell made custom parts to save weight, but the motor was stock and they had zero problems with it AFAIK.

Drill motors AKA RS550 motors have thin & bendy shells, short, thin & bendy shafts and weak brushes. They also have less than 100W output unless you seriously over-volt them. Hats off to Steve if he made the drill motor last a full event, but for the same money, a car fan motor is more powerful and longer lasting.

BTW: I am not saying bars are 'better' than drums, just that a good bar is easier to build. If a new builder can make a drum spinner that wins matches and lasts a full event without breaking, then they deserve an award . So far only Team Rotwang and the Planners have made serious drums and they are both at the upper end of the 'experienced roboteer' scale.
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Australian 2015 Featherweight champion
UK 2016 Gladiator champion

*cough NIKE cough*
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as a shadow is seen and not heard i am here
-Waddy the phoenix

Since Gary does most of the Mech Work on our bots, I might be talking out of my hat, but I cant see why a *low-energy* drum bot like Minimower would be any harder to make than a bar spinner..

Unless you direct-drive the bar off the motor, which is guarranteed to make for a short-lived bot. If you have a pully, or friction drive bar, the number of bearings and mountings seem equivalent.

A Bar needs lots of energy to more than lightly "tap" the other bot. A low-energy bar would be unlikely to even scratch most robots with their heavy side-armour, a high-energy bar will damage itself due to the shock loads of hitting something that weighs the same as itself.

It is the amount of energy kickback you have to deal with that makes the difference in the engineering (cost and work) required to survive. I'm sure that is well understood by Bot Bot builders. Even a no-weapon rammer needs to be built well if its going to hit something at 20mph.

The reason I reccomended a *low-energy* drum is that it is one of the few low-energy designs that is still effective and interesting without needing Kilojoules of energy. You dont need to try and belt the other guy with a King Hit Knockout and hope your knuckles survive the attempt.

A slow torquey drum is a rotary lifting device that pushes other bots around with ease (since it lifts the opponents wheels off the ground) , a semi-undercutter for nice chewy wheels, easy on the batteries (meaning you dont need expensive sanyo's to power up the bar within a couple of seconds), and still quite exciting to watch.

A beginner is much better off learning how to actually get it all together (and make it to events) with a design that will provide them maximum drive time (reliability) and still reasonable combat effectiveness, than going for a design that forces them to learn how to handle kilowatts straight away without getting burnt.
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i would say the difference in a bar spinner is you dont need a lathe to make one. you can buy the shafting, pulleys and bearings pre made and drill a press fit for the bushings orbit style.

drums you basically have a lathe to make the endcaps or just forget about it. altho i might have fluked it by finding a big steel circle that fits in this pipe i have here.

i wouldnt try either really lol.
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www.demon50s.com - Minimoto parts
http://www.youtube.com/user/HyzerGlen - Videoooozzz

Gary made Reboots and Minimower's end caps with existing bunnings wheels...
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https://www.halfdonethings.com/

@ Glen: Wait until you see the how-to guide I am writing - you have more than enough tools and skills to make what I am writing about .
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Australian 2015 Featherweight champion
UK 2016 Gladiator champion

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Gary made Reboots and Minimower's end caps with existing bunnings wheels...

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excellent
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