Having been quite productive this past weekend we wound up with just a few things left to do on the antweight Poor Punctuation 0.9, so we buckled down with the intention of finishing this 'bot. Click Back after viewing an image.
We had a couple of minor fabrication efforts left to finish, and then on to wiring. Here we've trimmed the steel weapon shaft, and drilled it for a 1/16" roll pin for the coupler for the shell.
Having inserted the roll pin, we're pretty much done with making parts. Time to switch gears and go to work on the electronics and other soft, squishy internals.
We began by drilling a couple of small holes for a zip tie to hold the weapon speed controller in place. We had to trim down the shrink-wrap around the ESC, but it's now in place.
Over on the other side of the weapon motor we have the receiver, and did the same thing of drilling a couple of small holes for a zip tie. This is one of those times where we wish we had one of the AR6110 receivers (vs AR6110e) so the PWM cables would stick out rather than down.
Time to prepare the drive speed controllers, which are well-used SozBot ESCs. This meant we had to remove all the existing wires, and with some de-soldering wick, a #61 drill bit, and only two burned fingers we now have to clean-ish ESCs.
Here's where we hit a snag - one half of one of the bullet connectors that came with the weapon motor has spontaneously evaporated ... which meant we had to find an alternative way to connect the motor and ESC. Not having any appropriately-sized connectors we decided to just solder the two together. Fortunately this photo hides just how ugly the soldering is ... but the wires are joined!
The next soldering job was to stick some wires on the Pololu drive motors ... that actually wasn't too tough, despite being tiny.
We messed up this photo, but it was supposed to show that there isn't a lot of clearance between the two motors once the chassis is reassembled. Just to be on the safe side, we slipped a bit of electrical tape between the two sets of leads.
Here we're verifying the layout at the battery end of the 'bot. The drive ESCs will be mounted to the chassis and we need to solder up the motor, power, and PWM cables.
Having made a few design changes as we were putting this 'bot together we decided to take a quick check and see if we'd affected out weight much - currently we're tipping the scales at just over 15 ounces, so we're in very good shape.
Back to soldering ... the PWM cables have been attached. We elected not to solder the positive wires as the weapon ESC has a battery eliminator circuit, so we don't need that functionality from there. We've also attached the power leads.
It just wouldn't be a build report without some drilling and tapping action, so here you go: mount holes for the drive ESCs drilled and tapped for #4-40 screws. There. Better? :-)
Here we're in the midst of soldering the motor leads to the ESCs. It's a little awkward, but doesn't take too long, and we keep glancing at the clock, wondering if we'll get to finish this 'bot and power it up tonight.
Soldering done, we and we're fitting the battery into the chassis to make sure everything fits properly still. We're really pleased that we've been able to put this together, but geez! This is a stupidly awkward build!
Here we're routing PWM cables from the controllers to the receiver. The orientation of the receiver needs to be flipped to be able to get all this connected. Luckily all the PWM cables are just long enough to make it without too much overhang, but a zip tie can clear that up.
As we need to route some cables around the weapon bearing block we need to install the bearing. It was pretty easy to install - finally! A part of this 'bot that wasn't über-fiddly.
Sooo ... the only thing left to do is to solder up a wiring harness connecting up the positives and negatives to a lead with a plug that connects to the battery. But it's 11:15pm and we have a full day tomorrow, so as much as we want to connect these last few leads we're going to have to call it a night.
Before we switched off the lights for the night we dropped the 'bot on the scale - as you can see we're under 15 ounces! We'll have a full half-ounce per tooth! Hurrah. G'night.
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