Building a heavy

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Marco Roberts
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Post by Marco Roberts »

Duno if u know but me and dave will be building a feather. We decided to team up and again its one of those things were you just wanna build one for the sake of building on.
We will be using a wheel chair chassie that I picked up. Its prity freaking huge and all ready v powerful.
Armour wise, we will start with plywood. But I have heard of a combination of plywood with an epoxy coating with polycarb screwed into it. Which we could incorporate into it.

heres a review I wrote on a wheel chair website regard the wheel chair I bought.
http://www.usatechguide.org/itemreview.php?itemid=569

I might as well put a bit of a building dirary on the forum as well.....

19th monday
Picked up the wheel chair in manchester. I had to push the thing back to leeds because the nice people who gave it to me didnt leave any charge in the batterys.I paid 134pounds on ebay. The wheel chair retails for over a grand online so I think i made a bargan.
I was quite paticular about the wheel chair as there were a few wheel chair parts online but I liked this one more as it wasnt designed for your old granny. But more fat overweight Amiricans.
I finally got it home after piushing it onto a few trains on the way home to bradford. Trying to get it up the stairs was a pain. Liz was very sure that the beast weight over 100kg. In the end I had to take the majority of the casing off as well as the chair and wheel it up myself. I would lift the front end up and liz would drive it up.

I took a better look at it and realised home cool the design was. Most wheelchairs are made to look like robots. While this one is a robot that lis made into a wheel chair.
I took the majority of the chassie apart to see all the inards.
I chatted to dave about our investiment and we were very happy with it.

Tuesday 20th March
I looked more into the electronics. I promised dave that I would figure most of teh bot out so that the sunday he comes round we spend a solid day building rather then figureing out how the thing works. The electronics were a bit of a pain. I wanted to incorperate some servos with microswitches instead of the joystic in place but the wheel chair would freak out with flashing lights whenever I cut a wire. Also the thing has a built in charger which we dont want. The electronics has three parts.
The joyststic modual which also has the on button.
The mains transforer which plugs into the mains and gives the wheel chair some electricity to work with.
And also some kind of wheelchair cpu which I havnt opened. Eitehr way it has everything inside it including the actualy battery charger.
The wheel chair wont work even without the transformer. I know that it doesnt use it when the wheel chair is running.
I figured the only way to make this thing remote controlled it to phsycally attach servos to the joystic which I know would rattle about and eventually break. I figured that we may need to get speed controllers just to get rid of all this unwanted electronics and also be able to pass a tec check. After my nightly call to dave he didnt seem happy that we may have to fork out for some speed contrllers but if it has to be done it has to be done. I also spoke to him about another problemm weight.
I figured that we might be able to get a clustbot since most people say wheel chairs are light. But not this beast. Its huge! Its motors are bigger then botch motors and its batterys have about 60 amps each. They weigh around 25kg!! I weighed eveything and it seems that its about 90 kg maybe more maybe less. We might need to get some new batterys as 60 amps would last us for a long time. We might be able to even ride the robot to some events. It can also easally out push me and a room mate combined.


Wednesday 21
This day is were I cut up most of the chassie. Since the chassie is nice and strong with steel box section I figured we should use it. instead of wood. I again wanted to get some of the little jobs out of the way as me and dave only have 1 day a week to build this thing and building is wat we should do. Not walk in circles scratching our heads. I bought an angle grinder and cut off the needless parts of the chassie. Mainly to save size and weight. I also attached a mono whele at the back temporarelly as we should be able to ask a nearby garage if they could weld it for us for a reasonable price.
I was done angle grinding and so I decided to test the electronics a little bit. I tested what the motors speed was straight from one of the two 12v batterys. I was impressed. It was faster then what the electronics gave me from 24v! I really wanted to see what this baby would look like at 24v though speed controllers.
I looked online worringly at what we were going up against and also to try and get cheap speedos from any kind of source.
Speedos wise I have found 4QD ones but im worried that since the motors are huge it might destroy the 70amp ones. I however found out that the electronics for the jazzy praide wheel chair were rated at 70 amsp so maybe we will get away with it.
I also checked out Armour. We plan to go for wood armour but if we have 4qd controllers in there that I think I would like something a bit more. I read about people with some kind of laminated wooden armour were they have wood coated with epoxy then a layer of 6mm polycarb screwed into the wood. The ressult is aprently prity powerful. I checked on ebay and saw a few sheets of polycarb for a 10ner each so we could do the idea.
Decided to not call dave as I had called him enough and liz was starting to get jealous. I decided to leave the late night heavy weight testing as the people down stairs were probably going to complain and I also had lectures all day, next day.

Thursday 22 march
I had a 9 to 6 lecture and I was nackered. I also had hockey training at 7 so robot building isnt going to happen much today. I also plan to see 300 (film). I might do a bit more research and some cad work but my uni work needs to catch up.
The pre robot work is also reletively done. Apart from some angle grinding. Sunday me and dave start building. But I might ask if he wants to meet sataday morning as we can pick up the parts from b and q which means that sunday we just spend all day building.
I will give dave a call and tell him about the polycarb and wood laminate idea. Also reassure him that he has a say in the project and to let me know when I do too much when hes not around.
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<-=AWS 13 1st and 2nd champ=->
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peterwaller
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Post by peterwaller »

That was a bargin we sold my father-in-laws one of the same model for ?550 earlier this year.
Is this a heavy as this is the heavyweight section or a feather as you state.
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Simon Windisch
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Post by Simon Windisch »

Sounds interesting Marco, keep us posted.

Simon
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Marco Roberts
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Post by Marco Roberts »

haha well thats a big typo, no its a heavy
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<-=AWS 13 1st and 2nd champ=->
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Marco Roberts
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Post by Marco Roberts »

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Craig_Anto3
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Post by Craig_Anto3 »

See you in Doncaster then, Tanto vs ur heavy
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Marco Roberts
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Post by Marco Roberts »

March 25th
Today was the day that me and dave met up and got really cracking on the heavy weight. And cracking we did. We met up at 9:30 and headed to BandQ. We bought
A jigsaw
nuts and bolts
screws
a massive sheet of plywood
and some casters
After we got the plywood cut up by the nice peeps and also got some free offcut we head home. It was a long journey and we got back to the house around 1.
We spent a good amount of time looking over the chassie which dave had yet to see. He also put forward a good idea to have the wheels outside instead of inside the shell. I agreed that it was a good idea and before we were able to start I got a phone call. Liz had just been hit in teh head by a hockey ball in her game that she had.
Me and dave stopped and headed over and luckely liz was not bad. The ambulance had arrived and it was just blunt inpact. No deep cuts and no need for stiches. She didnt go to hospital however she wanted to go back with the team to have after match teas. I was a bit anoyed because she should of gone back home to rest but also because me and dave had stuff to do.
After the pub me and dave started finally working at around 3.
Things however started flying together. The only issue we had during the entire build is that the jigsaw isnt very good and doesnt cut in a straight line with the help of a clamped long edge. The most acurate cut I was able to do was just by eye and thats how we gut with the jigsaw for the rest of the build.
We got the main frame done and we bolted the frame to the steel chassie
Once that was done I needed to angle grind some parts from the back of the chassie
Then some more frame to body bolting
Finally we added the casters which was a time comsuming job but we got it good enough.

And tadaa a project that is really taking shape. We deiced to test its handeling with the new shell and i think it was love at first site for dave. Never seen a man so much in love. It did move well and I really liked the out come.

We also decided on a name
Being Of Inconceivable Horror
Since this wasnt a hugelyy serieous project I supose we didnt need a serious name either.

We also have quotes for innuendo
Im afraid ur gona have to be on top dave
hold it tight casue im about to screw it

Tomorrow im doing a lot of work.
<-=AWS 10 1st and 2nd champ=->
<-=AWS 13 1st and 2nd champ=->
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Marco Roberts
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Post by Marco Roberts »

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leo-rcc
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Post by leo-rcc »

Looks like a good solid base to work from. So whats the next step going to be?
Best regards,

Leo van Miert.
Dutchrobotgames
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Remote-Controlled Dave
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Post by Remote-Controlled Dave »

Something Marco has failed to mention, its not gonna be an amazing bot, just a simple bit of fun to show we can compete. I love it to bits, as you can see in the pics!
Die Gracefully Robotics
Winner - AWS 39
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