What The Duck(ling)

Bot Builds & Designs
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Greetings all!

I thought to start a build log for my 150g in progress bot, What The Duck(ling). It is a overhead drill cam lifter with interchangeable weapons including, but not limited to, an axe, flipper, and grabber.

It was mainly inspired by Auger The Top and The Power Of Friendship. I wanted to finally make a damaging bot and this was my solution. I also wanted the abilities of a cam lifter.

It’s currently in the prototyping phase with some rough chassis printed and the mechnisms somewhat figured out. For the drill bit I replaced the shaft of an 1806 motor. I also had to massively downsize the servos used for the forks compared to my previous cam lifter, Guido. For driving the arm I’m using a prototype M10 from Ranglebox which should be lighter but just as strong.

N10 (left) vs M10 (right):

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This is the most recent prototype:

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Currently the prototype chassis is printed out of PLA but the final print will be TPU.

Any feedback or ideas would be greatly appreciated! :smiley:

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Great looking design! A drill can be suprisingly effective at 150g.
I’m a little dubious of that small all plastic servo though, I think its likely to strip teeth in the harsh life of a combat robot. Perhaps you can strip some weight out of the frame and upgrade it?

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I’m hopeful about the servo as a cam lifter requires very little torque and I shouldn’t reach their stall torque. I would only be worried about a direct hit from verts (I’ll have arour for horizontals but not much I can do for verts). I’ve ordered some BECs from BBB so I should be able to test today.

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Hello, it’s been a while but I’m back with a progress update!
I have all the components now and I have a few changes to the internals, most notably:
I’m now using the M10s for drive and a 100rpm N10 for the arm
I’ve switched to a more modern and compact chassis
And a higher gear ratio for the arm.

As for testing, here’s how it went: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1SAQ239UMxE
It can drill through tpu but I haven’t tested it on anything else yet.

The wiring in here is definately the tightest wiring I’ve ever had to do!

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Since starting to write this update I’ve actually finished the bot!

The finished bot:

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I’ve got some things to tweak and I have to sharpen the forks. I originally thought that it was going to be overweight and I had ordered a 1404 motor instead of the 1806 I’m using now to save weight but this isn’t going to be necessary as it’s currently 142g!

I really need to feed my bots more…

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The first time this bot will compete will be ORCS8 so I’ll make sure to post about it’s performance after!

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Sorry about the long wait but I just remembered that this post exists…
Anyway, I took What to ORCS 8 and went 2 wins to 3 losses, not too good. However, I learnt lessons and found issues.

The issues:

  • The gears were skipping when I tried to pull the drill out
  • The forks would slip on the servos
  • Too much weight left over.

The fixes:

  • I… Don’t know yet. I need to think about this but probably higher MOD
  • Fixing problems 2 and 3, I am going to replace the light, plastic geared servos with heavier, metal geared servos wich are more durable and won’t let the forks slip.

With these changes, I will be taking What to ORCS 9! Hopefully it does better.

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