Building a heavy

All things HEAV-VY!!

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leo-rcc
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Post by leo-rcc »

I've build 3 Heavies and rebuilt 2 more, and planning to build 2 more after the UK champs, one as a fun bot, the other as a serious competition machine.

Ive also built one feather and I can tell you it is way easier to make a good Heavy than it is to make a good feather. I'm not even mentioning ants. The only reason I have one is I wanted one but it is too small and too fiddly for me to build.

To make a simple heavy, as soon as you have your parts and proper tools you can be done in a couple of weekends. A good one a couple of weeks/months.
Best regards,

Leo van Miert.
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Craig_Anto3
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Post by Craig_Anto3 »

Tanto was built over 2 weeks working evenings and weekends, current one has been built in 2 solid weeks.I prefer working on the heavies too because there jus so much more fun, how offen can u see 100kg of steel and aluminium flying up after being flipped or slamming around the arena.
But its personal prefrence, i've ben building robots for 8 years now from featherweights to super heavies to ants and fleas to having the lardy antweight know as Tanto, all with varied sucsess. That said I'm seeded 9th in the uk champs and am looking to improve on a good start to tanto's season with an all new machine.
Cavecrusher
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Post by Cavecrusher »

featherweight in 8 hours straight,

Signed former european featherweight champion :P

oh, and yes, i'm working on a DBA-featherweight.
leo-rcc
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Post by leo-rcc »

Cavecrusher wrote:featherweight in 8 hours straight,

Signed former european featherweight champion :P

oh, and yes, i'm working on a DBA-featherweight.
But thats going to take a little longer than 8 hours. :)
Best regards,

Leo van Miert.
Dutchrobotgames
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Cavecrusher
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Post by Cavecrusher »

oh yes, ETF is about june next year, might go to Robolympics with it. And of course show those US pansies that UK Ant ARE the best over here :P
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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.
<-=AWS 10 1st and 2nd champ=->
<-=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
<-=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 »

<-=AWS 10 1st and 2nd champ=->
<-=AWS 13 1st and 2nd champ=->
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