Building an arena question

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minionhunter
Posts: 185
Joined: Fri Nov 04, 2016 5:36 pm

Re: Building an arena question

Post by minionhunter »

Kyro wrote: Mon Jan 20, 2020 2:28 am stick with the standard i6...
i dont recall what exactly, but the x had some sort of issue that randomly pops up on some models...

probably fixed by now, but you wouldn't know if you have an affected model...

the sticks are easily switched as all 3 of mine were meant to drive from the right with throttle on the left...

its as easy as swapping either the gimbals around (including the connectors) or a little trickier way is to swap the actual spring, a pin and a tension bar over...

replacement gimbals cost about £12 and liturally need to just be plugged in in place of the original gimbal assembly

its about 8 screws in total to open and change gimbal. requires unplugging 4 connectors, 2 of which are optional but make life easier as it allows the back of the tx to be completely separated from the front (battery and update/training port) with the other 2 being the gimbal itself
I haven't found the FS i6 for as cheap as you were saying (25-30 pounds sterling = about 33-39 USD), I'll have to keep looking. I did find one shop that had them without any receiver in that range (banggood) ends today 20th sale but I was also looking mostly for the FS i6x.
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Kyro
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Joined: Fri Jan 18, 2019 12:36 am

Re: Building an arena question

Post by Kyro »

i got all mine from ebay... one was £25 (no receiver) one £30 and the other £35 both with receivers... purchased at different times so really i guess its down to whatever the sellers want to sell them for at the time of buying... a quick search on ebay shows them for £30-£35 mainly with a few in the £40 range.

apologies for the misinformation. i was just going on what i spent on them back when i purchased them
Team Rocket
Trappist 1(4wd grab 'n' lift)
Ton 618 (4wd expanding bot)
Io(4wd flipper)
minionhunter
Posts: 185
Joined: Fri Nov 04, 2016 5:36 pm

Re: Building an arena question

Post by minionhunter »

Kyro wrote: Mon Jan 20, 2020 3:40 pm i got all mine from ebay... one was £25 (no receiver) one £30 and the other £35 both with receivers... purchased at different times so really i guess its down to whatever the sellers want to sell them for at the time of buying... a quick search on ebay shows them for £30-£35 mainly with a few in the £40 range.

apologies for the misinformation. i was just going on what i spent on them back when i purchased them
Don't apologize, I get price fluctuations and with all the crazyness in politics in the world they just might be more expensive in the US. I am absolutely grateful for your help and your time. I really appreciate it. I would be lost without your help.
minionhunter
Posts: 185
Joined: Fri Nov 04, 2016 5:36 pm

Re: Building an arena question

Post by minionhunter »

Kyro wrote: Mon Jan 20, 2020 3:40 pm i got all mine from ebay... one was £25 (no receiver) one £30 and the other £35 both with receivers... purchased at different times so really i guess its down to whatever the sellers want to sell them for at the time of buying... a quick search on ebay shows them for £30-£35 mainly with a few in the £40 range.

apologies for the misinformation. i was just going on what i spent on them back when i purchased them
I'm really glad the gimbals can be upgraded because I'm a big believer in getting the best out of components to help improve performance.

The lag time (if the i6 is comparable with the i6s) should be good too...
https://www.reddit.com/r/Multicopter/co ... radio_and/
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Kyro
Posts: 412
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Re: Building an arena question

Post by Kyro »

i have no complaints about lag with my i6... although the reddit post has some misinformation, the i6 has 20 model memory, not 6 like someone commented...

i wouldn't recommend the i6s either... it sure looks pretty but is lacking a few features the i6 has... like supporting afhds (the older protocol) as well as afhds2a. and i think some other differences within the menu.

i never felt i needed to upgrade my gimbals, but if it gets any more responsive than it already is, then its definitely predicting my next moves...
Team Rocket
Trappist 1(4wd grab 'n' lift)
Ton 618 (4wd expanding bot)
Io(4wd flipper)
minionhunter
Posts: 185
Joined: Fri Nov 04, 2016 5:36 pm

Re: Building an arena question

Post by minionhunter »

Kyro wrote: Mon Jan 20, 2020 4:01 pm i have no complaints about lag with my i6... although the reddit post has some misinformation, the i6 has 20 model memory, not 6 like someone commented...

i wouldn't recommend the i6s either... it sure looks pretty but is lacking a few features the i6 has... like supporting afhds (the older protocol) as well as afhds2a. and i think some other differences within the menu.

i never felt i needed to upgrade my gimbals, but if it gets any more responsive than it already is, then its definitely predicting my next moves...
Music to my ears, lag is a major worry of mine.
minionhunter
Posts: 185
Joined: Fri Nov 04, 2016 5:36 pm

Re: Building an arena question

Post by minionhunter »

So I found a guy selling some 0.5" (half inch) lexan for $100/sheet (4'x5') on Craigslist. Perfect right? Well he only has two sheets left and he said the paper is pulled off some parts... Oh well...

I'm still going down tomorrow though (it's only about 110 miles round trip) to check them out and I'll see if he will take $80/each if they are not looking too good. 1/2" lexan is really expensive and it would be like, well 5.58 mm here is $373.31 for a 4x8 sheet at Home Depot (big box store), and the cheapest price online I can find is $538 for 4x8 sheet of half inch with likely hundreds in shipping charges. So I think it is worth the drive and I can Google the brand on the sheet papers to confirm it is polycarbonate and not acrylic. Seems like a deal I can't really pass up, unless anyone thinks it is nuts.

Do you guys have any tips on finding cheap lexan/polycarbonate, even scraps for free over in the UK? I'm not above begging.

I also will try to solicit donations from some local companies using the girl scouts troupe as the focus for why it might be a good idea. I can offer to put their name on the arena and also in any videos credits so they will also get advertising out of it.
minionhunter
Posts: 185
Joined: Fri Nov 04, 2016 5:36 pm

Re: Building an arena question

Post by minionhunter »

Next question, what is your opinion on the ideal size of the driving space for an arena?

The 5x4' lexan sheets kind of falling into my lap (almost) got me kickstarted on designing this thing.

With that space (5' square outside box) I was thinking of essentially having a 200mm ditch/moat all around the elevated stage and a 1200mm square stage for the fights. This is essentially a square driving arena that is the largest dimension of Peter's arena but square.

My guess is that it would be similar to Chris' inner arena size. He said his was 1500mm outside dimension.

How do you all feel this size (1200mm) is for ants? Too big, small, just right? Would 1500mm driving space be better or just way too much space for ants? Would a 1800mm outside box be too huge for ants?

If I wind up with 5' sides (about 1.5m) I could go a little bigger on the inner driving stage. I am guessing this is plenty big enough for ants. I would love to go bigger like 6' (or 1.8m) cube and maybe it would be cool for different designs with multiple levels, but I think that too big of an arena driving stage would be working against the strength of the antweight class which seems to thrive in smaller spaces. Maybe it would be fine though and I could use a larger outside box and different sizes of inside stages.

Anyway, I would love to know what you think about ideal dimensions for an antweight arena.

Thank you for your help. It's kind of hard without a mock up and that would be difficult without the actual lexan. Whatever I decide I will have to make sure it disassembles quickly and easily for transport in my van. Maybe I'll try to make some cardboard mock ups on my dining table, I can at least see what the volume looks like.




As an aside, I would love to know the dimensions of the BBB arena and the Ant Freeze arena. My guess is that they are similar to Peter's.
minionhunter
Posts: 185
Joined: Fri Nov 04, 2016 5:36 pm

Re: Building an arena question

Post by minionhunter »

I'm also interested in any stage ideas you might have. I was reading in the nano forum that people were interested in a stage with a centrally located pit. If I build a 5x5 or 6x6 outer box cube this would allow for substantial flexibility in the types of stages I could use.

Is a stage with a central pit something that might make a good fighting arena?

Anything else you might like to see?

Thanks again guys! I really appreciate it.
James Williams
Posts: 94
Joined: Tue Jul 03, 2018 5:07 pm

Re: Building an arena question

Post by James Williams »

A central pit would definitely be an interesting change, but depending on design could be a bit of a pain to clear out after every fight, especially if something small but important flies in there. One good thing about the Bugglebots pit is it's designed so it can be accessed from underneath the arena floor fairly easily (granted it's for beetles instead of ants but the principle's the same).

1200mm sounds pretty good for a size. To be honest arena size preference depends more on the properties of each of the competitors rather than anything.
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