APSF Robotics
Featured Robots:
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Blue Vixen - V2 Light Weight Battle Bot After Blue Vixen's performance at Bot Bash 2001, I knew that things needed to be refined and improved. And since portions of the main base plate and frame work was bent up a bit by Backlash, it made a nice excuse to start nearly from scratch Design: The body consists of a mixture of 1/8" Aluminum angle frame work, a 1/8" Aluminum base plate, 1/4" Lexan side and top armor, and some 1/16" Aluminum step plate (mainly for looks). The drive systems power plant consists of a pair of 18V DeWalt drill motors set in low gear (450 RPM no-load, 400 in-lb torque @18V) on 8" diameter wheels from NPC Inc. The weapon system is intended to consist of either spinning kinetic energy (K.E.) disk or a cutting blade disk mounted on a frame work positioned in front of the drive block area. Upgrades from previous versions: Drive train is being made more efficient by removing the drill chucks and running the wheels off of 18V DeWalt shafts offered by Team Delta that mate directly with the drill's gearboxes as well as increasing the voltage to the motors from 18V to 24V! The weapon motor and power delivery is also being improved to use an EV Warrior motor and two stage gearing via belts to increase the speed on the 14" saw blade. Also, slight changes to the layout of various components are being made to provide more protection, reduce weight, and overall improve performance. Optional future upgrades: Front and/or rear mounted spikes and/or blade edges are a likely upgrade/addition to Blue Vixen. Other weapon upgrades include different spinning disks/cutting blades as well as possible change in the weapon motor. Additionally, larger wheels (up to 10" diameter) can be easily installed with little to no modifications to the frame work, providing more speed. Attack Tactic: As Blue Vixen is a nippy bot wielding a spinning disk weapon, attacks will consist of driving quickly at the opposing robot and using a combination of ramming/pushing and striking with the spinning disk. Updates: Dec. 15, 2002 - Yes, another LONG delayed update. In short, Blue Vixen first official appearance at Battle Bots was less then spectacular. First disappointment was when the robot was first activated in the Battle Bots test box, which was also the first time the new KE disk that I had made up was spun, the disk was well out of balance and the fact that the bearings I was using had a good deal of play and that the weapon motor was no longer connected to the same frame supporting the weapon disk, the disk and baseplate was vibrating like crazy. Going forward & backwards wasn't a big deal, but when the bot was commanded to turn, the disk would tilt due to the gyroscopic forces and tap against the ground and the support frame. It also appeared that with the added load of having to deal with the gyroscopic forces that my Vantec RDFR23 also decided to die during the inspection. Having failed inspection due to these problems and burning out an ESC, I went back to my pit table a bit disappointed as I knew that I didn't have a good way to make the disk magically balanced AND stiffen the support AND reduce the flex in the baseplate AND somehow obtain a spare RDFR 23 from someone else in just a day or two. But after a good nights sleep and thinking of how I can simply get the bot into the battle box just to have fun with it, I realized that I DID have a few spare RDFR 36e's for WulfBane and even though they were much bigger and the only place they would fit is where the weapon motor was located, I also resolved that since I wouldn't be able to gracefully get another weapon setup configured, I would simply remove the weapon motor and the disks to get the drive ESC installed to at least allow the robot to move (one minor mistake I made is that the forward/reverse direction was hooked up incorrectly and the bot was driving backwards, but I was able to adapt). And since I just dropped the weight of the weapon system, I went ahead and cut little lexan panels to go along the front angles. This weaponless version sporting a "pusher-tower" passed reinspection fine with an official weight of 48lbs (far under the 60lb limit). Blue Vixen v2's only fight was against a sturdy little pusher robot simply named "K" after the first initial of the bot driver's name (which, I unfortunately forgot). The fight was interesting with my 2WD spinnerless spinner attempting as best it could to ram and push a pushy bot that outweighed it and was designed to push. At one point, the Team Delta DeWalt spindle on the right motor sheered, which I wasn't too surprised that it happened since I was running with rather large wheels and there were many cases of the non-heat treated initial versions of these shafts breaking during BattleBots IQ. (and while the Team Delta version of these shafts weren't on the market back at the time of BBots 3.0, this is the same thing that happened to Zombie during WulfBane's very first win via KO) . Somehow due to the way the wheel was supported and other mysterious factors, I managed to find a way to keep the robot seeming to be under control and not just spinning in place. Of course, Blue Vixen was clearly outmatched and lost on an 11-34 decision. K did get another win (by KO) against his next opponent, but didn't get much further. But it was still fun and I gave the driver of K the broken spindle as a trophy for his very first win (again, very similar to my very first BBots win a year prior) March 30, 2002 - Wow. I'm REALLY moving along now. Last weekend, I tapped and painted the main drive body frame and lexan armor panels. At the end of that day, the motors were mounted and the main body was assembled. Later in the week, I mounted the flange bearings that go on the outside of the side panels. I did need to bring the side panels in a bit because I overestimated by about 1/2" how long the Team Delta drive shafts were (in relation to how wide to make the body). Then, yesterday and today, I wired up the drive system to the RDFR 23 and now its time to move to the weapon system (not much left now). Well, I've cut the grounding tab from the EV and mounted on a 3-1/2" A-Belt pulley to the output shaft. I've ordered some EV mounts from Kenward Plastics and they should get here next week. I've also mounted the bearings for the middle stage of the pulley 'gearing' for the weapon. But Tucson also decided to start getting REALLY HOT today, so I gotta take a mid-day break, leaving me with the 14" saw blade just being held by some vice grips (another savings on my work is that I'm gonna use the same frame that I used on the previous version of Blue Vixen). Tonight, I should be able to get the weapon frame mounted back up. After I get that done, its off to Ace Hardware to get the right size belt. (and freak out the guys that work there!) March 16, 2002 - And so it begins anew. This is a 3-day weekend for me (I get every other Friday off at work), so the plan is to do a MONSTER build marathon to try to get as much done on Blue Vixen that I can to start the robot off. After two days, I have the mounting for both motors finished, the left battle pack holder frame completed with pieces for the right one cut, and the bottom rear angle aluminum frame bar tapped and installed. Trust me, that is A LOT of stuff to get done in two days (especially for me). Tomorrow, I should get the other battle pack holder finished and hopefully the other drive body frame beams in place.
Progress Photos
The following companies used to obtain the parts
for Blue Vixen. Team Delta - Tons of robot components, including 18V DeWalt drive train parts and RC interface devices. NPC Inc. - Source of the wheels. Also caries remanufactured wheelchair motors. Vantec Inc. - RDFR speed controllers. While they tend to have a bit of a lag time on the orders, the speed controllers work quite nicely. Inovation First Inc. - Another source of single motor speed controllers. They are now offering a special "Victor SC" based on there standard Victor 883, but designed as a single direction controller for spinning weapons. Battle Packs - NiCd battery packs. Wide selection of battery voltage and current capacities as well as offering custom built pack options. Kenward Plastics - Has some custom machined plastic and metal components available, including EV mounts. Also sells lexan. Futaba Corp. - Manufacturer of radio transmitter and receiver. Tower Hobbies - Used to obtain various RC equipment. Hobby Town, USA - Nation wide hobby store chain. Additional RC equipment and batteries. Home Depot - Primary hardware store that various nuts, bolts, castors, and other misc. parts came from. Other local hardware stores were also used for other misc. parts.
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