Parts arriving thick and fast!

With my mailbox quickly becoming crowded with an influx of robot parts, I thought this would be a good time to share some technical specifications of Omikron. (Obviously not because I forgot to mention them in my last post!)

A sample of the components that will fuel Omikron

The whole machine is going to be powered by a Turningy Nano-Tech 1000mah 3s 40C Lipo. I have tried to avoid going overkill on my battery ratings as I usually do - 1000mah sounds to be slightly above the minimum, which should give Omikron an advantage in 'to the death' rumbles without a time limit. C rating is perhaps a bit high, but this is lighter than comparable packs, and uses an XT-60 which is very convenient for me.

The drive motors are Pololu 25mm 12v motors, mated to a 99:1 gearbox. From reading several threads on the FRA forums, they seem to produce significantly more torque than their cheap eBay counterparts. I've chosen the high power model because I think that will translate to more torque, which is necessary to operate the walking mechanism. However the low power models are offered with significantly higher reductions - I will have to see how this works out.

The drive ESCs are 10A Botbitz ESCs. There are cheaper alternatives but I have used their 85A models in my featherweights and never damaged one. I'm confident these will be worth the investment and I will get lots of use out of these.

I've not decided on the axe specifications yet as I want to build the rest of the robot first. This way I can make the most of my remaining weight allowance to get the punchiest weapon I can.

Finally some details about the armour and chassis. The whole chassis will be bolted together and made using HDPE. Baseplate is 5mm thick, whilst side and rear bulkheads are 8mm. The lid is only 2mm, which is pretty thin but with have a lot of flex to it to absorb impacts. Also, due to the height of Omikron, an overhead weapon will have an impossibly long way to go through the armour until it actually reaches any of the juicy electronics mounted to the baseplate.

That's most of the specifications, but I've also had the whole caboodle arriving in the mail - bolts, connectors, wires, bearings, you name it. It's been almost a year since I've built a fighting machine, I forgot how exciting it was to have all this cool stuff showing up at my house! Absolutely never gets old!

Today I am marking out the hdpe parts I'm cutting with a jigsaw. Weather has been awful recently so there hasn't been much opportunity for building. Tomorrow finally looks like it'll be a nice day so I should be able to get some work done. The disadvantages of roboteering without a workshop or decently sized shed!

26/06/19