September Progress

September came and went, and I finally got some work done on my new robot Kassinator 2.0! First it was out with the old and in with the new! This photo shows Kassinators old frame and drive train next to a shiny new 3" square piece of aluminum tube that will make up the new drive pods.

The first thing I needed to do to get the ball rolling on the new robot was to build the new wheel pods. Like last time I started with a 3" by 3" square tube of 6061 aluminum that I marked 45 degree angles on. I like 45 degree angles for the front so that it can be used as a wedge, and for the back so that the back of the robot is angled to deflect spinner hits.

A little work with the saws all and I have the first wheel pod roughed out.

Here is one wheel pod cut out.

The finish is pretty rough after using a saws all on it and because I can't seem to hold the saw perfectly straight while cutting (it could be due to the fact that it is shaking the crap out of me while cutting)

A little work on the disc sander to smooth things out, and square things up!

There, LOTS better.

Kassinator did pretty good at the last RoboGames by taking 4th place (the two fights that it did loose where two the Big B and Agsma). Both of these fights where lost because Kassinator got pushed around the arena like a Smart car in a demolition derby!  The reason for this? Wussy drive motors.  This time around the 18V harbor freight motors that where run t 18V are being replaced by 18V dewalts run at 24V.  Should take Kassinator from around 6 mph up to around 20!  Should be fun to watch at least!  This picture shows an old motor vs a new one.

All four of the motors getting restless, dont they just look fast sitting there?

I HATE getting crud in my motors while I am building, this happens because I don't draw the robot in CAD first, so I do a lot of figuring and laying out on the robot with the actual parts.  This tends to get them dirty, so a trick I thought up was to wrap them in blue painters tape.  Keeps the crud out and when your done it peels right off with no sticky residue left on your parts.

Here I am laying things out, getting ready to start cutting holes in the drive pod.

Here I am drilling a pilot hole before I drill the bigger hole for the bushing.

Looking good!

Next I needed to Mill out the holes for the wheels to stick through. A couple passes with the milling machine and the holes are ready for tires!

Well almost!  I wanted a little more clearance around the wheels without having to make the holes bigger, so I clamped the drive pod at an angle and took some meat off the inside of the wheel openings.  This gives the tires MUCH more room to spin in the openings, and keeps the already big hole smaller.  Yea I sometimes wish my mill had that fourth axis so I wouldn't have to jerry rig parts to cut angles =)

Here is everything cut out with the bushings pushed in.  I'm using NPC wheels this go around, they are slightly wider than the Colson casters I used last time, and already come with a 1/2" bore ready for a keyway.  I'm going to machine a spacer next month to go inbetween the motors and the drive pod.

The last version of Kassinator was supposed to have a flame thrower in it but last minute problems forced me to remove it.  I was trying to use a butane refill with a servo pushing it forward to open the built in valve on the tank and an electronic BBQ sparker to ignite it.  There where lots of problems with the butane refill (It ran out of gas really fast, wouldn't stay lit when tilted up and the whole servo pushing it forward thing was just plain hokey.) but the BBQ sparker worked great!  I searched high and low for a new way to do a flame thrower and settled on this camping stove.

The only thing I am using from the stove is the valve and tank.  The tank valve is great!  It screws right onto the low profile 3.5 oz butane tank (you can buy the tanks at any camping store and there are lots of sizes) has a fitting for standard 1/4" tubing and as a bonus it seems to have a built in regulator that takes the butane down to about 30 PSI.  The thing I really like about this setup is that my flame thrower will NOT spew out liquid, making the tank of gas last much longer.  Also in this picture is the solenoid valve that will turn the flame thrower on and off, the BBQ sparker, and the Nozzle the flame will come out of.

Next month I hope to have a rolling robot!