The Hotel Lima, for Ants: A Build Diary

[peterwaller]

I use a pair of tweezers they work well.

[LimaHotel]

It really is as simple as that? Nice.
As soon as I get paid I'm gonna drop a fresh order of Lemons.

[Kyro]

a bit of bent paperclip also works... if you can find one that fits the holes snugly, its as good as any plug plus allows for handsfree operation as you can "plug" it in and leave it there until finished...

you may even find a paper clip thats correct guage and perfectly sized to be able to use one of the built in bends...

[LimaHotel]

And just to confirm - the plug is just a straight bridge across the signal and ground, right? IE. Top and bottom, skip the middle.
I'd be AMAZED if I'm wrong here, but just for peace of mind and to have it in clear writing from someone who knows what they're doing
Got paid yesterday, motors are on order, I am gonna buy me some pinless lemons, uuuuh... I still have PLENTY of polycarb and alu (Which I'm still not entirely convinced is 7075, but it held up pretty well at the aws so I may as well use what I got right?)
Rebuilds could be coming in the next few weeks! And I'm hype to finally actually build Jiggy!
I also still have that Nano2, though I'm not really sure what to use it for? I'm kinda saving it for something special / space critical where a DasMikro + lemon won't fit, but I have no idea what or when that might be.

[Kyro]

yes its a straight bridge from signal pin to -

with aluminium, you can work harden it.

if you have a strong flat surface and a decent hammer, you can hammer it thinner that it already is which in turn strengthens it. you can get 6061 decently hard with this method so even if its not 7075, it will be stronger than it is now while also being a little thinner.

its not going to be on par with steel or titanium but you can get 6061 a little harder than brass, and 7075 a little harder still...

hope this helps

Luke

[Kyro]

on a second note, i would test a few pieces before using your main part as going too thin can make it brittle and would snap before it bends with a big impact, although this is usually quite hard to do its not impossible.

i have hammered some down to half original thickness and been fine where as other times i have only hammered down roughly a quarter of the thickness and it has become brittle... i guess its dependent on which grade of alu you have...

so just keep that in mind


Luke

[LimaHotel]

Sadly my Jewelers anvil is tiny - it's great for shaping wire, but rather underwhelming for this.
I'm also playing with different thicknesses of Polycarb - like, I had used 1.5mm for the base as I figured it'd give the best rigidity for mounting components. And armour itself too - how much difference in toughness is there as you make the polycarb thicker?
Exciting times!
(ordered the lemons btw, once those and the motors arrive I'm gonna try find a day to rebuild them. I think I'm gonna do the sides of Key thinner next time and have them as a separate 2-fold piece from the base. I'm also gonna mess around with the connection between the servo and the fipping arm, as at the moment it's at a nearly 90 degree angle which is robbing the servo of nearly all it's flip. Pushbot is gonna be invertible, and Jiggy is gonna exist. I'm excited!

[LimaHotel]

Ayyy! New motors are here! Just waiting for the Pinless Lemons to arrive before total rebuilds happen. That said, I'm excited to see if these N20s make the difference to my speed - gonna swap out the old N20s in the existing Key Grip for a test-drive!

[LimaHotel]

https://youtu.be/SHc9KOWKbyI
Crap quality, but hey. It shows the important bit.
HAHAHAHAHAHA YEEEAAAHHH!

[Kyro]

that seems much faster than at AWS...

what rpm are those? at a glance id guess about 400 rpm going by the speed of my 400 rpm motors.

although i purchased some 500rpm 6v motors and some 1000rpm 12v motors which should run at the same speed at the same voltage but the 500 rpm motors are a fair bit faster...