Coming together

Only a few days left before we leave for Robothon!

Here is a picture of one of the twins almost done, just needs the weapon bar bolted on and the battery cover made.  I went a little over kill on the "on" status LED.  The entire robot glows blue!

Here is the twin in a pile of cnc cut parts!  There is about 20 hours of CNC time on each robot, good thing all you have to do is set up the material and then hit go on the CNC machine! More to come!

New Robots!

Sorry It has been so long since I updated this blog!  Life gets busy (Which means my wife gets demanding with the "Honey DO list") I have been able to sneak in some robot building time however and I just thought I would take a second to share what I have been up to.

I have spent a lot of time designing a 12 pound spinner robot to take to the WAR event in Seattle next month. I finally got the design nailed down and have started cutting out parts. Here is what things should look like when the robot is all done. I am actually building two of these robots so that my niece and nephew can drive them at the competition. Should be fun if/when they have to fight each other =)

  Here is the robot with its top off!  I'm trying something new for this robot, I call it sandwich construction. The frame/armor will be made of 5 CNC cut pieces of 1/2" thick Lexan with pockets for all the compnents. I will then stack them on top of one another and run 8 bolts through to hold everything together.

There are a lof of custom aluminum and plastic parts on this robot so I have turned to my trusty CNC machine that I built last year to make them.  This is a chunk of 1.5" thick aluminum that is about to become a weapon pulley/blade hub.

4 hours later I have my part!  I love having a robot that makes parts for my other robots.  I have to make all these parts twice since I am building twin robots so here is another chunk of aluminum ready for four more hours of CNC work.

I put the pulley on my lathe to cut the round profile for the belt to fit into.  After a tip from Kevin at Team Velocity I am using large O rings as drive belts for the weapons.  I made the groove wide and deep enough in the pulley for a 1/4" round belt.  You can see there are three male rounded drive cogs on top of the pulley.  The blade will have the female version of this pattern cut into the center to transfer the power.

Here is the pulley from the back.  I hollowed out as much meterial as I could to get the weight down, they ended up at 5oz each.  You can see the bonze bearings I am using, the weapon will rotate around a dead shaft that will help stiffen the frame.

A little more work on the CNC machine and lathe and I have the smaller pulley to go on the weapon motor.  Instead of driving the pulley with the motor shaft I bolted the pulley on the back of the can, right where the Propeller mount is supposed to go.

Here is the first frame piece fresh off the CNC machine!  It looks pretty snazzy and it is extremely light weight.

Just for fun I through in the parts to get an idea of how everything will fit, looking good!  There is still a lot to do before the competition so more posts to come!

Hot Stuff - Getting ready!

Batman shot!  I have been putting my new CNC machine to good use as you can see.  I can't believe I ever did things like that side armor manually!

Here is a little better shot of the side armor, you can see the pockets in the underside to lighten things up a bit.  You can also see the "Hot Stuff" logo I engraved into the top of the aluminum drive pod.  I think it looks pretty good!

Here is a shot of the new bumper on the back of the bot.  There are a lot of nasty spinner robots going to the games this year and I needed something besides the complex and somewhat fragile grab/lift arm to slam into them.  This "spinner stopper" is a 1/2" thick and two feet wide chunk of lexan.  It is bolted to the back of the robot with two massive 5/8-18 flat head bolts made of stainless steel.  More to come as the games get closer! 

Finished!

The router is done!  Here it is in all its smurf colored glory.  Here is it cutting out an S that Kassie designed.

It's alive!

My cousin came over yesterday to help me get my router set up and everything seems to work great!  It can do 176" per minute rapids which is plenty fast for my needs.  As you can see the machine is not quite done because I wanted to test everything before I finished it in case something didn't work right.  All seems ok so it's time to get it done!

Router is mounted!

When I was figuring out how to mount my Dewalt router to my CNC machine I ran into a little "What came first, the chicken or the egg?" Scenario.  I could have hacked together some router mounts but I really wanted some nice and uniform mounts made from UHMW that where beyond my capabilities to make by hand.  So I cheated and went over to my cousins house to use his CNC router to make the mounts =) They came out great, and seeing his machine cut them out really motivated me to get mine done!  The picture above shows the two mounts fresh off the machine.

I wanted the mounts to clamp the router tightly so I machined two pockets into each one so that a bolt and nut could be used to clamp the router in place.  I put a slice down the center of the two pockets and drilled hole in them for the bolt to go.  It is a very solid mount!

In this picture you can see the motor mounts mounted to the Z axis and the router inserted into them.  Even without the two bolts in place to pinch the router it is a very solid and tight fit!

Here is the machine from a distance.  All that is left is installing the motor and ballscrew for the X axis, building and installing the cutting table.  After that it's just a little paint and wiring up the electronics and I'll be able to try it out!

Speaking of the electronics, here is my controller box.  You can see the Breakout board, three stepper drivers, relay board and power supply in the lower half of the box.  The lid contains two fans, the on and off switch, some fuses and a speed controller for the router.

Here is the electronic box with the lid installed.  The white household plug on the lid is used to power the router and the dust remover.  They are each independently controlled by the relay board from the computer to turn each device on and off automatically as needed!

It's coming together

Since I finished the gantry for the machine the next thing I needed to do was build the base.  I didn't have a big enough workbench in my garage to put the machine on so I built this extension on the end of my work bench.  I spent a lot of time making sure it was level and flat so that the machine will sit evenly.

In this picture you can see the base of the machine starting to take shape!  The can of Mt Dew (the official drink of my garage) is sitting in the front corner of the machine to show scale.  This is a pretty large machine! You can also see that I have placed the Gantry in the frame rails so I could see if everything is coming out like it is drawn in the plans.  More to come soon!

Gantry done!

It took a lot of work but my CNC machine Gantry is done!  Here it is standing up on my work bench.

You can see the "Green Monster" motors that run the show.  They are supposed to be able to put out around 400oz/inches of power, not to shabby!

Here you can see the mount that connects the ballnut to the Z axis to move it side to side.  The ballscrew is so efficient you can grab the Z axis and push it side to side and the ballscrew will turn and allow it to move, its pretty cool to watch.  Next up is building the base!

CNC Update!

Here is where most of my projects start, a pile of metal on the floor!  The steel yard I got it from even threw in the rust for free!

Here I am cutting some of the steel parts out on my amazing Black and Decker workmate 300 worbench!  I like it because not only is it a work bench but it also can clamp onto parts like these steel beams so I can cut them with a sawzall.

Here I am starting to center punch the holes to mount the linear rails for the "Y" axis to the 1/4" thick by three inch wide angle iron.  After the holes where center punched I drilled them out and tapped them for M5 bolts to hold the rails to the steel frame.

I thought about using bronze bushings to support the ends of the ballscrews because they are simple to mount but I ended up using some ball bearings to help things run smoother.  They started life as some Team Delta pillow blocks meant for fighting robots to roll around on, but after some work on the bandsaw they where cut down so that I got two smaller bearings from each pillow block.

Here I am drilling the mounting holes in the pillow blocks and the steel frame.  The small 1/2" shaft in the bearing passes through the steel as well and keeps everything lined up while I drill.

Here you can see the Y axis really coming together!  The parts are just laying there right now but you can see the mount for the stepper motor on the front 2" square tubing. You can also see the two linear rails mounted to the steel frame and the ballscrew running down the middle of it all that will move the Z axis left and right.

Here you can see one of those bearing blocks that I made in an earlier picture mounted and holding the ballscrew in place. I had to turn the end of the ballscrew down from 16mm to 1/2" to fit into this bearing and the LoveJoy coupler that connects the ballscrew to the motor.  Turning the hardned steel ballscrew on my Harbor Freight mini lathe was no small feat!  But I was able to do it.   More to come!

CNC Router update!

I have been working on finalizing my cnc router's design for about a week now and I think I finally have it the way I want it.  Most of the router is going to be made from steel either 1/8" thick or 1/4" thick and the cutting table will be made from high density particle board.  This is my final CAD drawing of what the machine should look like.

Here is the machine with the cutting table removed  so you can see the inside.  Now its time to start cutting and welding some steel!

CNC Router

Well it's a new month and I have a new project! I have always wanted a CNC router in my garage because you can build just about anything with one. For those unfamilier with what a CNC router does it's a machine that takes something you have drawn on the computer and cuts it out using a wood router that is moved left and right (which is called the X axis), forward and backwards (which is called the Y axis) and up and down (which is called the Z axis) all controlled by a computer. It can cut out 2D shapes as well as 3D shapes and the best part is it just plugs into your computer where a printer normally would.

This is a CAD drawing I made of what my machine is going to look like.  One of the most important parts of a CNC router is the linear bearing and motion systems. I am using 16 and 20 mm round linear rails and bearings to support the machine and stepper motors driving 16mm Ballscrews for movement.  The spindle motor will be a 2 HP Dewalt router that will have a remote speed controller.

Here is where it all started, a 2' square plate of 1/4" 6061 aluminum.  My Z axis is going to be made out of aluminum and the rest of the machine will be steel welded together.

Here I started to cut the parts out, I needed this small square and then a larger rectangle that will make the frame for the Z axis which will move the router up and down.

Here is everything after I drilled some holes and mounted the linear bearings, ballscrew and stepper motor.  I used a Lovejoy coupler to attach the 1/4" motor shaft to the ballscrew.

Here it is from another angle, the Dewalt router will mount to the smaller top plate.  There is 6" that the router will be able to move up and down.  Up next is to get a bunch of steel and build the rest of the frame out of it!

Here is a random video of a CNC router in action and below it are some random pictures I stole from the internet on things you can build with one.

December - Finished!

December was crunch month!  I ended up working my days off at work so that I could take some days off to go to Combots and compete with the robot, this made a LOT less time avaliable to actually finish the robot but I managed to get it done.  After I had all the brackets to mount the components welded in I stripped all the parts back out of the frame and then I ground and sanded the welds down to make them look nice.  I hung the frame and the aluminum wheel pods from my garage rafters and hit them with my signature Red and Black paint job.

Here is the frame ready to have all the components put back in.  Although I used steel to build the frame it ended up only weighing 12 pounds as it sits in this picture and it is VERY solid.

Here I have the drive pods bolted back on with the Dewalt motors mounted.  The armor panels are not square and they twist to match the frame when bolted on.  I made some patterns out of cardboard and then traced then onto the 3/32" thick lexan that makes up the bulk of the armor (I know its really thin, but after several competitions fighting with LW bots I have never had it be a problem)

Here is some of that thin lexan that will make up the back armor.  I needed to bend it to match the back end of the bot so I clamped it to my workbench like this picture shows and used a rubber mallet to make the bend.

Here the major rats nest of wires is starting to take shape.  Every one calls me old school but I use a Vantec RDFR36E to control Hot Stuff. It is a little heavy but handles the four Dewalt motors great and has proved itself bullet proof through two comps now.

This is how you know the robot your building is going to be very animated, no empty rx channels!  Although one of them is just the rx battery monitor the robot uses FIVE channels to control everything it does.  Yes it is a handfull to drive!

Here I am trying to shave some weight off the side armor by removing half the material.  In the end I ended up being almost two pounds over weight at the competition and I had to remove most of the side armor, part of the top armor and a bunch of redundant  hardware was removed or changed out to aluminum to get Hot Stuff to 60 pounds.

The all steel arm in last months progress report was much to heavy so I made a new arm that was mostly aluminum.  Here are the two main spars fresh off the bandsaw.  I drilled a bunch of holes in them next to remove weight.

In this picture you can see I made a new lifting fork from steel that bolts to the end of the aluminum arm.  I tried square tubing this time to see if that would scoop other robots better than the round tubing I used last time (It was pretty much the same) I ended up reusing the grabbing arm from Kassinator on this robot since I was running out of time to get the bot done.  You can also see the 1/4" thick lexan I used for front armor in this picture as well as the two 5/8" diamater spikes I had on both the front corners to use as outriggers.  These where made from 6-4 Titanium and help up great!

Here is a close up of where the fire comes from in Hot Stuff.  I used a nozzle meant for an air compresser blow gun for the flame nozzle.  Wires where run from the BBQ sparker to the front of the arm and you can see the two little copper wires in front of the nozze where the sparking happens.  It took a LOT of fine tuning to get the spark to actually ignite the gas.

In this picture you can see the 9 oz paintball tank I use to power the lifting and grabbing arm.  It may seem kind of small but I have never ran out of gas in a match before.  I use a palmer Regulator to bring the tank pressure down to 150 psi and it works great at keeping liquid Co2 from getting past the regulator (which is bad news as your low pressure side is all of the sudden hit with ~900 PSI of pressure)  There is an emergancy blow off valve on the low pressure side that is set for 165 PSI and that has saved my bacon the few times liquid Co2 has made it past the regulator.

Here is a shot of the electronics on the finished robot.  For an on and off switch I used a removable like again made from Anderson Power Poles, worked great and weighs almost nothing.  You can see everything is really packed in there!

Photo Courtesy of Team Toad.

Here is the ultimate battle of hot and cold; Hot Stuff vs Frosty the snow bot!  Combots was a blast and despite needing a few hours of repair work after each match Hot Stuff came out undefeated!  Although the Finals was an especially close call!  I think people enjoyed watching the robot fight and I'm planning on bringing a mostly unchanged Hot Stuff to Robogames this spring.

Video of Fianls: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=95hVgSNHKs4