WARNING: gratuitous photographs of fat fingers
MotherLoader is on for the BBB champs this year and I am super excited. The pressure is on to perform to prove the concept has legs (tracks)
I tried to knock out some of the main bits of electronic work in order to get ahead of the curve before panic sets in. As I’m going to brushed on the weapon and making some other worthwhile changes to the loom I can’t transplant it like for like so its getting redone to make it less awful. One of the new BBB escs is slotted in the bulkhead and retained with a little clip. the output wires are whipped out one side to go to the motor and the input are split going through the bulkheads to get to the power circuit and split off the signal & 5v line from the BEC to my second RX.
We’ve had one, yes. What about second RX? I don’t think he knows about second RX… Yes in the continued quest to tryhard I am sacking off weapon duties to another pair of hands and eyes. The power circuit is unchanged so its still on one link just the axe & lifter are on one controller and the drive is on the other.
The chassis is coming together well and is waiting on a dye job before I can start fitting it out properly with hardware and running wires from side to side. I remembered how hateful sorting out the loom on this was - once it is together it is quite a neat little thing but until that point it is a huge pain in the plums.
Taking a note from Jacks work on The Chilli Daddy I made up some brass spacers in order to stop my pinions moving or the shaft slipping back and disengaging from the gearbox and killing the drive.
Just a simple bit of tube and it should all be okay in that regard. No doubt it’ll create some new interesting problem further down the line. I also took this opportunity to sand some of the blue paint off the gearboxes.
I also started on the most interesting and important bit - new tracks! I changed up from the diagonal tread to lots of little square nobbles. I feel they’ll be better at scrubbing out traction in pushing matches - plus I can loose them or they can wear with less consequence. The central core is TPE over TPU because it was easier and cheaper to come by in a pinch. it is 83a and seems super pliant and grippy. The core is unchanged from the last version - I just made a new mould for the tread.
As you can see the tread is much fatter than before so theoretically it is more robust.
I also am experimenting with a bit of colour. A little bit of yellow pigment and I have a funky yellow lego-esque track to run with. I’m not sure which I prefer the black or the yellow so I might have to make a full set of both and swap them around when the robot is completed.
Just for a little bit of bonus content I committed a mild crime and used a bit of spare silicone so I cast one of my favourite Lego tyres so I can make softer polyurethane copies of them - no real solid plan for them but I’m sure they’ll come in handy eventually.
Thanks for reading as ever! The soundtrack for this particular update is Ministry and the drink of choice is scissortail rum and ginger.