Designing a Fighting Robot (part 2)

Andrew Schreiber
Jul 24, 2017 · 2 min read

Short update on the bot today. Last night I ordered the wheels, hubs, batteries, bearings, and weapon motors. Today I pulled together the various ESCs I had sitting around for the bot. I planned on using Vex Controller 29s for drive, I realize I can try to do the 3D Tetris thing in CAD but I had the chassis and I have the ESCs so I just started fitting things. While I don’t have the 3S battery pack in hand I do I have a 2S which the only difference is thickness. So I placed it in the bot for testing purposes. It snuggles right along the back wall between the motor mounts.

Then came the fun game of trying to stuff 3 ESCs (2 drive and weapon) into the chassis while leaving room for the receiver and the main power switch. Well, honestly, I’ll skip to the chase, it sucks.

3D Tetris Sucks

Obviously, I can cut the wires down and that will help with packaging. My RX is pretty small so it should run right down the middle of the of the chassis. As much as I like connectors I think I’m going to have to solder everything that’s not the battery in.

That’s it for today, likely no update tomorrow since I’ll just be waiting on parts. Hopefully if the bearings and wheels come in I can mount the drum to a piece of 3mm shafting and get driving. I’ll likely have to make some tweaks to the frame shape (or at least add some holes for a skid screw to keep the drum off the ground.) So probably end up printing another iteration of the chassis for that.

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