With only four weekends left before Motorama 2011 it's time to step up the action on the building front. Although we're still waiting for the lion's share of parts to come in, we were determined to get as much grunt work done as possible this weekend. To that end we made a couple of lists of things to do, and stepped out to the build space! Click Back after viewing an image.
Our order from SDP/SI has arrived - here are the weapon transmissions for Formidable Fustigator 0.9 (two XL pulleys and an XL timing belt), Didactic Duelist 0.9 (two GT2 pulleys and timing belts), and Poor Punctuation 0.9 (also GT2). With any luck we might even get to install our antweight's weapon transmission this weekend.
We've also received an order from Hobby King. We thought we'd hit pay-dirt with these speed controllers - 30A, 1 ounce, and cheap! But after opening one and reading the manual (RTFM!) we were disappointed to realize that there are single-direction ESCs. Not useful. We'll have to order different speed controllers for the beetleweight Versatile Villain 0.9. Poop.
The rest of the order looked good though. Some handy little 1S 100mAh LiPo batteries, some Spektrum-compatible, 3-gram receivers, and a programming cable for the secondary radio we ordered a while back.
And parts for the featherweight - a BEC on the left, and 70A 8S-capable speed controller on the right. At least these looked right, and we hadn't messed them up!
Plus the weapon motor for Formidable Fustigator 0.9, which looked pretty beefy, so fingers crossed it'll pull it's weight in the 'bot spinning the 24" blade. So with parts organized, it's time to head out to the build space.
First order of business is chopping up a bunch of stuff on the tablesaw. We didn't realize before our last McMaster order that you could order polycarbonate in strips, not just sheets - duh! By ordering 2" x 0.5" strips of polycarbonate it was much easier to work with in cutting pieces for the walls for the featherweight - only one cut per piece to get right, instead of two or three. Nifty!
We also chopped up a top and bottom plate for the hobbyweight Nihilistic Naysayer 2.0. After that we switched out the blade and cut some 2" x 0.5" lengths of 6061 too, but we were too busy being careful to take photos!
The plates for the drmbot need to be notched, so we switch to the jigsaw, and roughly cut them.
And finished them up on the belt-sander, including rounding off the corners to where they'll mate with the grooves we're planning on cutting into the top and bottom of the frame pieces for the hobbyweight.
Trying to be organized and efficient, we decided that while we had the sander out we'd quickly make up a couple of weapon shafts - a 3/8" one for the drumbot, and 1/4" one for the beetle Didactic Duelist 0.9. Didn't take too long at all.
Time for the astonishingly exciting drilling-and-tapping portion of today's programme! Here are the inner walls for the 30-lb'er. We've marked and punched the bolt holes, and it's time to get to drilling.
After a while we're done with both walls, and the spare. As you can see we made a bit of a mess - it might be time to invest in a new, sharp, 13/64" drill bit!
Fast-forward a while, and here are three walls, all drilled and tapped, and ready to roll. We'd forgotten how long it can take to tap things, but now we remember! Ugh ... still, these parts are done at least.
Seeing as though we're in a tapping mode, and already have the 1/4"-20 tap handy, we decided to tap the weapon shaft for the hobbyweight. Piece of cake, once we realized that holding the tube with the channel-locks made the operation go faster, because the part couldn't rotate so much in the vise!
As we get close to wrapping up for the evening, we decided to take some of the parts we'd received/made today and do a rough layout on the featherweight. The wheel and motor mounts in this photo are too wide, which is why it doesn't line up properly at the back, and the edges of the inner walls aren't bevelled yet, so they don't quite line up yet either, but otherwise it's beginning to be recognizable.
A final look at our checklist for this weekend - still a lot to do tomorrow, but we've made pretty good progress for an afternoon. The weapon motor mount and drum are outlined because we're not going to be able to make those this weekend - we have no 1/8" 6061 aluminium, and the piece of UHMW pipe we ordered last week was the wrong size - doh! But tomorrow should be a fun day of drilling, tapping, lathing, and milling, and stand us in good stead for the flood of parts that will be arriving next week!
Subscribe
