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TWI - Team ROBORT
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Bort
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Joined: 15 Jun 2004
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Location: Sydney, NSW


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TWI - Team ROBORT

Robot Stats

Team name: ROBORT

Robot name : TWI (Tread Wear Indicator)

Team location: Sydney NSW

Robot weight(Class): Feather weight

Type of Robot: Tyre Saw-bot (low cutter. Not really an undercutter)

Drive system: 2x drill motors

Type/size of wheels: Bunnings red wheels

Weapon/s drive system: Saw. Pintarra motor. Blacktown Market saw blade

Speed/motor control : Servo Switching to automotive relays (PnP). Remote Power switch and failsafe.

Power: 2 x (2x 1.3Ah in parallel) for the drive. And the the two sets of batteries in separate series circuit for the weapon.

Armour: Trailer tyre (Council cleanup) about 40cm dia. 2-3 ply nylon. Walls are around 10mm thick.

Type of radio controler: 36mhz FM Skysport Wink

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Well I thought it was finally time to start a build report. To tell the truth I was starting to feel left out Smile

I've just about finished TWI, which is unusual to have time to spare. So I'm going to try and make it look pretty and so forth. Hard to get motivated to do that though.

I don't have a digital camera so no pics, unless someone took one at the last event when I was madly trying to finish it.

For those that haven't seen it, it looks remarkably similar to Kang. However I had conceived of the idea before Glen had built Kang, just couldn't find a small enough tyre. The tyre is from some sort of trailer accoring to Lindsay as it is rated to 100km/h.

I've thrown the bot on the bathroom scales which says it weighs 10kg. My calculations had it coming in around 9-9.5 so not too bad. Even got weight to spare. Now all i need to do is find room to use the spare weight. Seriously its tighter than a nun's ..........

I'm happy with how its turned out and all come together. Not sure its going to stand up to the calibre of the other NSW bots but its improvement. I originallly wanted to have a steel top plate, and wheels that were tall enough to make it invertable. Instead I ended up using MDF for convenience and easy. Besides no welder. And compromised into castor invertability.

Call me simple but the bit I like is the light up switches. There's something satisfying in seeing the little light come on when you flick the switch. Also the way it dims when saws starts to spin up Shocked

Post Sat May 20, 2006 1:11 am 
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Bort
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Joined: 15 Jun 2004
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Location: Sydney, NSW


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On a sidenote, Retread is getting a redo. I've had a fan motor lying around doing nothing. It's pretty chunky and got some decent spin up. So its getting stuck in retread with a mending plate directly mounted to it. I know that it won't last long but I just want to see.

Was thinking about other ways to simply modify retread into a beginner KE spinner. PLaying around with friction drive atm. Can;t seem to come by belts and pulleys that easily. Pnp stuff is all crusty as you might expect and a bitch to remove.

Also not a lot of spare weirght in retread, not surprising with a 5-6 kg tyre. However 2 drills have been removed. Making it only 2 wheel drive. Pushyness was never its forte anyways, as long as it moves.

Post Sat May 20, 2006 1:19 am 
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Bort
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Well today I did a hell of a lot of driving. Had to go to North Rocks Computer markets to buy CD drive. Checked out the other market there too. Then I went to Blacktown markets. Bought an $8 saw to use as a spare for TWI. Sometimes the dodgy vendors are like $20 for pieces of shite. But this was one was like meh $8. So I thought score. Not much else there though. Then stopped of at Bunnings. Then drove my wife to church. Then picked her up to go to family dinner.

However amongst all that driving I did manage to finish Retread mending plate spinner bar. Made up some semi-sharp teeth too. Atm the teeth are tapped and bolted to the bar using short 1/4 incg bolts.

So then I fired up the weapon using my trusty car battery (great for that quick power source). OMG! It went crazy. Probably not the safest thing to be doing. However I was only going to hurt myself, and I didn't spin it up full power. I was considering using 24V, but I'm thinking that 12V will be sufficent Very Happy

The construction of retread is just about done. Then will come the wiring. Last time the weapon wasn't working properly, so will have to test out the relays.

Anyone else tried tapping steel without a tapping wrench? Or am I the only one too stingy (stupid) to try without one?

Post Sun May 21, 2006 11:44 pm 
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Valen
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Joined: 07 Jul 2004
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I tapped some very thin stuff without once.
to be fair it was a 4mm tap

i just used a shifter and take it real easy.
the hardest part i found was getting the flipping thing square.

heh i too went to north rocks today, got 2 NIC's and looked at laptops.
then i went to jeffs place, (cos i heard tell there was arena repairing happening) who i thaught was out (knocking etc to no avail), though his car was there, then i went to chicken king, and came back to jeffs in case he came back, however this time his car wasn't there. mysterious.....
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Post Sun May 21, 2006 11:52 pm 
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Bort
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@Jake: Ahh the old vanishing car trick. I'm sure if you looked closely the car was in fact there Jake. It was just behind a giant mirror or something. Either that or nobody else turned up.

Started work on the electronics of retread today. Also went to PnP and picked up another Pintara motor, pulleys and belts, and relays. Unfortunately the pulleys aren't going to work in the current setup so they'll be kept for a future bot.

Tested out the wiring, which seems to work still. Surprising considering its probably close to 12 months old in some spots. PLayed around with my new GWS failsafe which arrived today as well. Its not quite as good as the venom one but it will suffice.

Unfortunately I'm going to be working a lot and won't have much time between now and the event. I'm guessing its going to be a few long nights...

Post Mon May 22, 2006 11:20 pm 
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chrisjon65
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crikey a bort build page ,looks like someone has been bitten by the build bug ,looks like im gonna have to step up and build a real robot Wink ,now about those dill motors
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Post Tue May 23, 2006 2:07 pm 
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Bort
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Your not wrong Chris. I certainly have been bitten by the build bug. I can't stop designing the next bot even before I finish the current one.

I like your robots. Theres a certain character to them. However evolution seems to be the best way to come up with a winning robot.

In regard to the drill motors I've got a couple spare lying around. Most of the others have moved on to bigger and better motor drives. But essentially they are the same size and type. There's a step by step tutorial on the robowars.org page.

If your interested I've got two motors and wheels ready to go and another two untouched. I'm interested in 2x kiddy car gearboxes and possibly wheels for my next design bot. No need for speed in the next machine.

Post Tue May 23, 2006 8:46 pm 
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Bort
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I'm very happy with the way that TWI performed on the weekend. Much better than expectations as it came 4th (much needed points)

Surpirisingly stood up to Jolt hits, only cracked the MDF in one spot. Jolts blade seemed to be hitting the top a bit too much though.

Next rebuild will be Ali of some reasonable thickness not sure. Only weighed 8.6kg Shocked Should have been 10 according to measurements. More wight to play with the better

Post Sun May 28, 2006 6:10 pm 
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Glen
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sounds like you need steel, and lots of it! let me know if you need any Razz

twi was impressive, i was rather amazed the drill batteries lasted that long powering the saw and it spun really hard too. three thumbs up on that effort Smile Razz
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Post Sun May 28, 2006 6:12 pm 
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Bort
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Thanks Glen. Yeah that motor just kept going. The saw blades didnt bend as much as other either. Actually polisher batteries. Whooping 1.3Ah Smile hehe

Steel you say, well actually I wouldn't mind some steel

Post Sun May 28, 2006 6:19 pm 
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Glen
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yeah those saw blades are really good. orbit clobbered kangs last event and only bent a chunk of the disk, it was largerly unbent, there pretty thin too. i should armour my robot in saws Very Happy

ive got tons of 4mm steel here if you ever need any. and have a pretty well endless supply at the dumpsters lol.
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Post Sun May 28, 2006 6:22 pm 
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Bort
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Saw blade armour? Interesting idea.

Not many teeth left, glad I bought another. Going to be a pain to drill it out again Sad

I might take you up on the offer some time later. I'll wait and see. Thanks.

Post Sun May 28, 2006 6:26 pm 
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Bort
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Well with any luck TWI will be getting some steel top plate. The 12mm MDF was only ever designed as a lay out until steel could be obtained anyway. Although 4mm isn't super thick steel I'm sure it will be more than enough.

I have finished disassembling TWI and inspecting the damage. Hopefully I can get some pics soon as Im expecting a digital camera for my birthday next week. Jolt did more damage than I thought. The MDF is cracked and it appears that Jolt's blade has bounced on top of the tyre and sheered the bolts. Which is interesting as the tyre should be slightly taller than a red bunnings wheel and Jolt's blade should have hit lower than that.

In the end it was a wire from the power switch that disabled one side. How annoying. It appears to have been caused by the controls sliding forward and pushing the wires into the blade. At least the controls didnt cop a slice too.

I think TWI will continue to evolve for a while as I'm quite happy with it. Retread on the other hand is going to be used as a learning platform for my future robot. Which hopefully will make an appearance at the annihilator or next robowars.

Speaking of which the next design will require some steel work and use of a welder. If anyone is in a position to assist I would be most appreciative.

For the mean time TWI will be my main focus. Hopefullly Lindsay will get back into buillding as he keeps saying he will. Then I won't have to try and juggle two robots at a time.

@Glen: those 1.3Ah polisher batteries aren't as good as I thought. They dont seem to like 24V at all. I was powering up a Kang/Pintara motor with a heavy load and used 4x in parallel, they didnt even get warm. But two in series and smoke and glowing contacts after 1 second. I then had a closer look at the old batteries from TWI and realised that some of the contacts on the batteries had smoldered etc. So no more 24V Sad . However 4x in parallel hoons along still quite well. Or maybe drop it back to just 2 sets in parallel. Didnt seem to have any power issues, even in the matches that lasted the whole time.

Post Wed May 31, 2006 1:45 pm 
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andrew



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Location: Castle Hill, Sydney. N.S.W


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yeah TWI was very cool, u have been getting better with each robot, I have a stick welder if u wish to use it, id get Glen or somebody with a mig to help if possible but the offer is there.

re-tread looked nasty, a phat bar maybe belt or friction driven would work.

direct drive is badd Very Happy
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Post Wed May 31, 2006 1:51 pm 
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Bort
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Thanks andrew for the offer. If I can't get a mig then I will take you up on it.

Yeah retread as I said was a learning platform. First step in a bar spinner is directly mounted. Then comes the nest step, which will be belt driven. Unfortunately I ruined one of my pulleys in another application so a trip to PnP will be needed. Still trying to sort out bearing situation as well.

Advice accepted. No more direct drive. Smile

Post Wed May 31, 2006 2:15 pm 
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