Antweight bits for beginners

[stimpy]

Cool, thanks for the replies

The £60 option sounds a feasible, and I am looking for the parts as I type!
I shall probably post the list of items before I buy, just to be on the safe side.

This is what I am aiming for click me

[BeligerAnt]

This is what I am aiming for click me

Very cool, but may cost a tad more than 60 quid!

Welcome to the forum, hope you manage to figure something out. You've done the right thing by asking here!

Pete's suggestions for a cheap pusher are a great way to start, you can then incrementally upgrade over time by adding a weapon, changing to Lithium Polymer (LiPo) batteries, changing from servo drive to gearmotors and thus spread the cost.

Pushers can be very competitive as the competition arena has at least 50% of the perimeter as a drop-off. The all-round walls at BMMF were to save us having to keep returning the robots to the arena!

[Remote-Controlled Dave]

The basic issue of cost is sometimes one that puts many builders off, but its worth noting that, once you have the basics (transmitter, charging equipment, armour, tools) these can be used again and again for more than one robot. The transmitter can be the most expensive part of the entire project, but once its bought, its with you til it dies. Having a transmitter and equipment available can drop subsequent ants down to a cost of about £50 if you budget well, and even certain budget transmitters can be aquired fairly cheaply now, with no effect on the quality of the robot.

Welcome to our little world anyway. My biggest bit of advice would be, if you are unsure about any little thing, however daft it may sound, ask us. We're all friendly and willing to help out any newcomer. I knew nothing whatsoever when I started out many years ago and this forum helped me over all hurdles. Ask before you spend money too. A big pitfall for newcomers is to buy something cheap that looks like it'll do the job they want, but doesn't. Questions can save time and money, and help you get going into this wonderful sport we do.

[sidon100uk]

Hello everyone.
This is only (hopefully) the second time i have used rc stuff, and hoping this time not spending a fortune wont make me loose. I.e oval carpet racing......
Just ordered some bits from hobby king and a guy who supplies at H.O.T's, and wondered if someone could point me in the right direction as some examples of (correct me if im wrong) spinner, sumo and chopper i have plenty of enthusiasm but no idea . But im sure i will get there.

Simon

[joey_picus]

"plenty of enthusiasm but no idea" sounds an awful lot like my entire life - hopefully you have more luck than I have!

You don't need to spend a fortune to be competitive; it gets a lot easier the longer you're involved as you find that most of the components you use can be recycled between robots, barring any nasty spinny incidents. I'm presuming "spinner", "sumo", and "chopper" are references to robot designs, in which case:

Spinner: http://www.antweightwars.co.uk/ is a good place to start as Peter Waller is pretty much the godfather of antweight spinners (in that we have to pay £10 to stop him sending Variant into our houses at night), and lots of other people have built them - Scott's Zenith (link, link 2) and my own The Hurting (link) being but two who have detailed information that I can think of!

Sumo: These are quite simple, Dynamite comes to mind (http://www.windisch.co.uk/robots/archiv ... s/dynamite) although a lot follow a similar 4WD pusher template. Generally I find that if you have a low front and decent drive/driving ability you can beat a good portion of the other robots at a World Series regardless of weapon!

Chopper: Axe weapons tend not to be seen much, largely due to the force needed to penetrate most antweight armour being difficult to generate in 150g without some sort of flywheel weapon. Baby Hell (link) and the venerable Pants (link) are the only ones to meet with real success so far, and both rely more on pushing than their weapons.

If it's suppliers you need, I have a few links on my website, along with Peter Waller's own range of speed controllers for which there are excellent legal reasons for not including him under 'suppliers'. They are by far the best and most weight efficient controllers I have experience with though!

Hope all that helps you, and that I've not misunderstood somehow!

[BeligerAnt]

One more guide to how to put together the fourth class of antweight - lifter/flipper

http://goo.gl/LUTjl

There are many other options of battery types, speed controllers, etc but this shows one possible solution.

[dcr raptor]

Would I need an esc to be able to use a gear motor to power an axe?

[joey_picus]

You don't *need* one, but it's the most practical option compared to other methods - in a pinch, the servo board from a standard servo might do the job (as explained in Gary's excellent page above ). For Razor Wind (my axe robot in progress when midterms are done) I'm planning on using a full-blown single channel ESC, although everything seems to be quite expensive...

[razerdave]

There are not many single channel controllers around, only real AW size ones are in the states (Banebots, Fingertechs and (if you have the weight) Wasp's). A decent servo board will suffice with the right mod.

[Rhys]

Funnily enough Dave, I was going to ask you this the other day, how do you fire the axe on Kill a chav? Is that a servo board, or do you have some kind of switch/esc?