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Nick
Experienced Roboteer
Joined: 16 Jun 2004
Posts: 11802
Location: Sydney, NSW
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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. _________________ Australian 2015 Featherweight champion
UK 2016 Gladiator champion
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Sun Mar 05, 2006 1:40 pm |
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Spockie-Tech
Site Admin
Joined: 31 May 2004
Posts: 3160
Location: Melbourne, Australia
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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. _________________ Great minds discuss ideas. Average minds discuss events. Small minds discuss people
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Sun Mar 05, 2006 2:42 pm |
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