News Archive 2003
- 30/12/03 - Had the day off work which was unexpected therefore I cracked on with the robot. Got both sides of the robot working at half power on the bench and started to put the electronics back in
but ran out of time and was called away so I didn't get finished will do tomorrow.
- 29/12/03 - Dave still hasn't sorted his problems out today. But Ive made significant progress. The rear chassis has been reduced, the whole thing only weighs 1.6Kg now as opposed to 1.8Kg when it was first made. Also after a complete
dissasembly most of the drive train, motors and batteries have been put back in and the left side now works properly on 12V. I will complete the right hand side modifications tomorrow and do a full test with the electronics put in.
- 28/12/03 - Dave M popped over today with his heavyweight motor and electronics. He has NCC-70s with a Ian Swan interface board which looks very impressive. After a few hours setting up the system we had it working for a short time
from the transmitter but something caused it to cut out we ran out of time to figure it out we will have to have another day looking at it. One thing it did teach me is that the problems encountered in heavyweight construction are much
greater than in featherweights.
- 22/12/03 - Sent off my application to next years Featherweight smash and also said I would attend the Roaming Robots Preston Event.
- 21/12/03 - Jon and I went to the my first RC Wars today with mixed results, G-Force didn't work at all but CBF worked ok on the bench after an hour or two of work this morning. But in the arena the wheel mounts bent, this can be fixed with the addition of some
bolts but I will wait until after Christmas now as I need some time off featherweights to concentrate on a) rest and b) the heavyweight.
- 19/12/03 - The plan was to get the robot almost finished today but I was called into work at 12 so didn't get much done, I will have to do it all tomorrow.
- 18/12/03 - Finished one gearbox except for linking the chain and tensioning it.
- 17/12/03 - Continued work on the gear boxes and made some progress still a long way to go with not much time as I want it working by Sunday. E-mailed James Cooper to say I will be attending on Sunday.
- 14/12/03 - Started work on the gear boxes and have done one side today although there is a lot of perfecting to be done. Also have uploaded a new cad drawing of CBF.
- 03/12/03 - I have been invited to RCWars which is on the 21st December as long as CBF is ready I'm going. Also recut the top armour as the position of the wheels has changed recently. This just leaves the spur gears which are becoming a real pain.
- 13/11/03 - Still no work on the robots feather or heavy as I've been busy at uni live events page updated again.
- 05/11/03 - Updated the events page with some confirmed events for next year, no further work on the feather or heavy(See heavyweight for recent developments) as I've been too busy with uni work.
- 29/10/03 - Over the past few days I have been working on the spur gears and new sprockets and have nearly finished them, then its just a case of mounting them on axels and drilling the gearboxes.
Then hopefully the robot will be fully working. After testing the electronics again, the motors seemed slower. I have put this down to flat batteries so Im recharging them and will do another test later.
- 14/10/03 - Wired up the robot to check every thing still works, and it does. Just need to machine the spur gears and mount them, and its finished.
- 07/10/03 - Found out today that the Gloucester event has been cancelled so Im a bit disapointed as it was going to be my first test.
- 04/10/03 - Spur gears arrived at 9.30am and woke me up, oh well it got me out of bed probably a good thing. Well its nearly the end of fresher's week and only managed to get drunk once. Lectures start again on Monday. Thanks to Technobots as usual good service as I know they were struggling to
get the gears.
- 03/10/03 - Found out today that my spur gears have arrived at home and should be on their way up here to Lancaster. This encouraged me to do some work on the robot, so I recut the wheel hole is the bottom armour and resoldered to link.
I also filed down the front scoop and put the electronics back in.
- 22/09/03 - Mounted the final wheel and packed all my tools and parts up for my return to uni to a few days.
- 19/09/03 - Drilled and tapped some new holes in the chassis, back to uni in 5 days so work will have to wait.
- 18/09/03 - Mounted another wheel, although it is slightly out of alignment it should be ok.
- 17/09/03 - Made new wheel mounts and mounted the left side wheels, strangely the chains are now very slack and will probably need to be shortened.
- 15/09/03 - Updated the events calendar, it can be downloaded here.
- 14/09/03 - Had a great day at Kettering, found out some useful information and some other worring info about the advances in heavyweight technology.(Event Report).
- 13/09/03 - Looks like I'm off to Kettering tomorrow with Dave from Turbine, although neither of us have a combat ready robot. Did some more work and slapped on some armour for tomorrow, just to make it look like a robot and not just a chassis.
- 12/09/03 - News on Jon's new feather it uses the chassis of CBF MK3 with a few modifications and its called G-Force. This is because it also uses parts from our original feather g-string. I have also been donated lots of metal ally and steel also lots of nuts and bolts.
- 11/09/03 - Made one sides drive plate and made one removeable spike for the front also slapped on front and back armour as i don't need to work on those areas of the robot. Also finished off Dave's speedo.
- 10/09/03 - Spent most of the morning making a Speed Controller for team turbine (Only one the electonize ones) which will be used to make a M2 kilobot.
- 27/08/03 - Spent an hour on the phone to Dave M tonight, disscussed lots, including heavyweight rams, Kettering next month and featherweights. As a result we may be getting two 50mm bore rams and I probably going to Kettering on the 14th. Still no work on the feather.
- 22/08/03 - Had an e-mail from Technobots and they are having to get more gears in so it will be at least three weeks, which is annoying but also expected at this time of year with RW so close.
- 21/08/03 - Technobots is very busy so it may be a week or two before I get the spur gears I ordered, so again work will have to wait.
- 20/08/03 - Just had a long weekend up at uni so no work done on the robot, on the other hand got lots of drinking done.
- 11/08/03 - Did some more work on the new gear boxes and new holes in the chassis.
- 10/08/03 - Ordered spur gears for the new gear boxes and cut out one of the gearbox plates.
- 09/08/03 - Several days of trying to get the robot working for todays Featherweight Smash was for nothing as it failed in the first fight. The drive needs modifying with the addition of spur gears. Got back and took the robot to pieces. Event report here.
Also today I found out that the Robot Rumble didn't break even so it looks like it won't be on next year.
- 02/08/03 - Got the right side working but not very well. It worked on the bench but the chain snapped when testing on the ground. Two problems were the channels were reversed and there was a weak link on the chain that will need repairing. But quite a successfull day.
- 01/08/03 - Got the left hand side drive working and working well on the bench will test it on the ground when I get the other side working.
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