Hopmeister - Antweights

Hoppin · 15 May 2023 16:43

I’ve always thought the best design ethos for antweights is “Serious antweights are cringe”. To me, antwieght robots have always been about sliding one aspect to the extreme. With that being said I made some over-engineered, not serious ones for SCAR 4.

F3
If you went to Robonerd, you saw the last version of F3, this version had a few changes in order to fix it, includes new frame (bulkier), new (bigger) lipo, new forks (Yes, they’re unnecessary ) & the weapon got pushed forward by 5mm, felt like as the larger vertical spinner I really wanted to maximise that insane reach advantage it has.

Just some photos I could find around.

TPU frame now, 2 pods which are connected to the Carbon Fibre brace, didn’t have any issues with it the whole event. (Thanks Rob & Filo for making these bits <3)

End boss who? These were really overkill, but I had them done since V1 all the way back last year, felt time to put them on.

Assembled frame & electronics. Nearly raring to go.

Landmine
Main topic of this post. New build, new silly. Just something that exploded after one hit. A real big “Highlight reel” robot, even if it was for the opponent. So I do my usual, message Rob Weston.

Chit chats with the GOAT

In conclusion, evolve the Gordon.

Landmine required a good amount of “tactical weight saving” took the dremel to it a bunch to make weight, but overall nothing that really changed the core concept of the robot. I don’t have many of the build process images, but hopefully it can show in the following.

Some CAD design for it, don’t think it was particular hard to get right, atleast when I was doing it.

Carbon Fibre frame, top of the picture, along with various Filo & Rob made bits for other Ant & Beetleweight things.

Electrically, here’s how it works, 3S lipo in, 3S voltage goes to brushless ESC & BEC, BEC goes to malenki. Later swapped the link out for just a regular switch.

Much of the rear carbon fibre get dremelled, tail also, changed some screws, wiring, some mounting holes went. But there’s both robots, ready for the event.

Embu_Rob · 15 May 2023 17:01

Nice man, those are some amazingly wild bots - we love to see it! Keep up the good work

Milo · 17 May 2023 09:19

Seriously GOATED with the sauce, keep up the crazy builds

Hoppin · 8 October 2023 21:36

How much is too much?

Landmine 2 is fastly approaching and I’d like to take this opportunity to document it’s current progress.

For those unaware, the robot is a 200mm, 4S, Walking undercutter, having recently caused quite the stir up from the tip speed, with a theoretical 984mph tip speed. Very epic (Will discuss at the end on this specifically)

So design wise, the big change was the shuffling pods. I haven’t really tackled non-roller style movement, but have been pretty eager to try.

Voltage was a pretty deciding factor into electrical setup & subsequent design of the walker, not wanting to do the same micro BEC step down setup used in Landmine 1, decided that a full brushless system was the move, plus it’d be able to get some pretty high RPM.

Premise wise, it’s rather simple. 1404 motor runs a spur gear to another gear on a 2:1 ratio. Which turns the subsequent CAMs inside the bearings and then the legs. The motor itself is recessed into the printed mount. Which then has heat inserts on top to allow for the frame to screw into. I was pretty worried about the lack of smoothness with the walking mechanism whilst this thing is spinning, so I’m hoping the bearings provide a nice smooth transition between legs.

Frame wise. It’s largely the same principle. Big CF thing, with shit ziptied/taped to it. It worked surprisingly well last time. But decided to up the thickness to 3mm, rather than the previous 1.5mm

The motor on the previous Landmine was a 2204, 2300KV Gartt. Normally a pretty fucking beefcake motor for antweights, but on this robot, it was struggling a bit on the spin up. Upgraded to an StanFPV 2604 2410KV motor, which I’m hoping, along with the additional voltage, has enough torque to get this weapon going

Weapon Motor comparison

So here’s some basic PLA prototyping on the CAM mechanism, just to make sure it moved. Seemed to work pretty well. These then got printed by Jake and his fancy Bambu to make some Nylon CF legs, CAMs, Gears & Housings. (Big thanks boss)

Here’s an assembly pod.

via GIPHY

Got some walking video just before Robonerd

Here’s the frame! Cut on my 3020 router. First time with CF and I’m rather happy with the results.

Even cased him up some lil feetsies!

His current form. Right now all that needs happening is wiring, along with a final walking test just to check it all over. Overall I’m super happy with the progress and really look forward to showing it done

Here’s a 16mm brushless motor for another antweight project. Should be epic.

On a serious note. This robot is very much pushing it on a technicality. I’m fully aware of that. I’ve spoken with EOs of events I’ve attended recently about the legality of this robot and am fully acceptant of their final decision (It’s their arena afterall!). I think we’re very quickly approaching an epoch on Antweights in which the tools available to us allow for the pushing on boundaries the Antweight rules just haven’t been updated to account for. Very much open to hearing opinions about the current state of Antweight rules (More AWS, Antfreeze rather than BBB & Dojo).

Joe · 11 October 2023 14:59

Amazing. Lovely machining. loving both the shuffle mech and particularly the 16mm brushless (been working on a similar project as the latter but I always struggle with motivation for ants!)

I think we’ll have to see if tipspeed may have to make it to antweight after this bot - if you have a test box, I’d love to see it hit a 4mm wall and see if you can get some breaching.

hhills · 12 October 2023 06:17

Not casting too much shade as I’m well aware I’m in the minority but I think the cube rule did have the happy side effect of nerfing tip speed issues before they could come to be.

But that’s excellent work all round from a design standpoint. Was the 3mm Cf purely from a stiffness perspective? Wondering if a 1mm sheet frame with stiffening rods bonded along the skeleton cloud prove lighter and stiffer still (although stickier and more time consuming)

Hoppin · 12 October 2023 07:52

Thanks Joe, probably my proudest moment from a design perspective! However, I think the mechanism gets carried a lot by being such a high voltage. 16mm brushless were done with this guide, they’re also gonna go on some shuffling mechanisms. Think they’ll also have some super cool lifting/crushing applications however!

Honestly, there should be, don’t know if it needs to be 250? I know there’s talks about a 500-600 ish soft cap (kinda NHRL vibe). But I think with stuff like the Malenki HV & sourcing some appropriate LiPos. It’s rather easy to do this. I’ll hit some polycarb in the box once it’s all assembled, just needs some of the steel kickplates and the latch and I can do that, super curious myself to see how that goes. Dojo folks did some maths and theoretically it’s got the energy to do that.

Hoppin · 12 October 2023 07:59

Agreed, that its one of the advantages the cube rule has, but I do think it’s a rare positive for the cube.

Thank you Harry! Surprising amount of work went into this walking shitpost so I’m very glad it goes noticed! As far as rigidity goes, I was exploring 1mm titanium, but it’s also just more expensive! The last robot used 1.5mm CF and it held up quite well, even with some sliiiiiiight flex in the last fight, which may or may not have obliterated it’s own drive motor… So I’m hoping 3mm is enough to keep it rigid.

hhills · 12 October 2023 14:05

Matched thickness CF is going to be way stiffer than titanium while also being lighter and a just a tad sexier too.

3mm should be pretty mega in an ant. Can’t wait to see some video!

Hoppin · 1 November 2023 23:42

Here’s some progress on the 16mm gearboxes. Always had the intention of using them for something overspecced, and this is it. V1, my 4S, full brushless, walking hammersaw. So, if you saw my first post over on Facebook, this concept was around for a bit. But I wasn’t a big fan of the execution, so decided to give it a rejig to make it generally look less fat, and a bit more streamlined.

Originally, it was just a 2S lipo, with an N10 driving the arm. Really didn’t like the mounting in it, was just a bit shit.

Things I did like, drive and it’s mounting, weapon itself (Though would need to drop the motor size down!).

Here’s the earliest work on the rework, Kingmax servo for the arm, orange TPU cheeks (Same colour as Greg) & fork mounts. Looks a lot more purposeful. Motors were now a 1404 brushless motor, 4S lipo in, 1104 weapon motor (Would be upped to 1303.5)

Here’s the motor after last post, it’s now has a 1404, with shaft still to be cut down & a different gearbox which will have about 2000rpm at the output shaft. I asked the guy from Finland about what RPM he ran in his saw bot, and it’s about the same. These got some green loctite between the shaft and the motor, and are looking great!

The classic Psuedo robot to see what it looks like with the parts from Lasered Component. It’s got like 8 forks & 6 discs, so not shy of spares!

The servo for the fella, Kingmax C507. Love this thing, so small. 11g rn with wires.

Here’s some legs. Can’t lie, I wish they got printed in black, but it’ll do. PLA-ST, they’re gonna get casted this week, have printed molds, etc. Looking to try it with 30A.

Here’s it in current state, with all the bits I have now (missing ESCs, Rx, Panels) it’s about 157g, so I think it’s super doable , panel materials should arrive this week for machining, thus I can wire and finish it in time