Construction - The Building of New Cruelty - robots

Bot: New Cruelty
Weight: 337 lbs.
Builder: Richard Stuplich
dick@killerbotics.com

Construction

The new design starting to take shape in this photo shows the new simple approach to combat robots I decided to take.

This plate has the mounting holes all laser cut exactly where they need to be.

You can also see the must have drill press, the wooden prototype base in the background and the first metal frame all the way to the right.

By this time I had 10 motors.

Now the top is bolted on and all the holes lined up perfectly. This is when I placed the side plates in and tacked it all together (no pictures).

In the back, to the left, you see an RM125. It is calling my name saying "Take out my motor and make a robot"... I am resisting but I hear it in my sleep and while I am at work... I can't resist much longer.

All tack welded together with the motors removed. Next it was off to a professional welder friend of my father.

Side view of "New Cruelty" all tack welded together. You also see for the first time the Go-Kart slick mounted on it's aluminum wheel.

Tires - Carslile SuperSlick
Wheels - Van-K

You can also see my Hobart Handler 175 (GET ONE)

Notice not one, but two fire extinguishers. Welding creates VERY HOT METAL PARTS.

Under the bench is a Yamaha 50, Shaft drive automatic tiny motorcycle... I hear it calling my name as well... It says "Take me apart and make a bot out of me!" Nevermind, 50cc is not big enough for any bot I would make!

Before you paint metal it has to be clean. After it was welded together all I did was oil it and rub it with a diaper in the garage. This kept it rust free and gave me something to do while I waited for all my Van-K wheels and Carslile SuperSlicks to come in.

You can see my son Alex helping me wash it while I rub it with a scuff pad. There is the first appearance of the mounting plates on the front.

Can you believe I can get 2 Vantecs, 100 pounds of motors and 100 pounds of batteries into that 13.5 inch wide armord body?

At this stage Eric and I went out to get more red paint. We got sidetracked on an off road romp in my VehiCross...(this is not the first time this has happened)...
[ Many more pictures ]

Back to the bot. Here it is painted. This stage is the worst! Painting takes so long. I ended up cranking up the kerosene garage heater to get it to dry...

Ok - that "laying it down" stuff wasn't working. I couldn't wait until it was dry to turn it so the paint kept sticking to the bench. In the 3 images above it is hanging from the rafters. Now I can spray away and crank the heater on it.

Enough messing around. Time to get on with the construction phase. The paint isn't exactly 100% cured but it is dry to the touch so why wait?

That white pipe is a detachable barrel from a potato cannon. It was handy to go through the holes to avoid messing up the external paint job.

The view where all the electronics will mount.

Positive power buss and 50 Amp circuit breakers. The white wires power the Vantec on that side. The red wire is 6 gauge and the white wires are 8 gauge. The breakers are *not* auto resetting so I have copper bars to bolt on them during combat so they can not pop and fail the systems.

Other side of the electronics compartment.

Vantecs mounted and positive leads attached. Like a glove!

This picture on the right is shot from the front of the bot. Cool picture.
[ More pictures from this stage: -1- -2- -3- -4- -5- -6- -7- ]

Spring steel bumper on a bucket getting painted. This is a leaf spring from some sort of truck. I got it from a junk yard "Hilltop Auto" for $5.

I like it because it is curved, perhaps to keep to opponent in front of me, and good and springy to absorb some of the impact.
(That is not my foot in the picture on the right... I wouldn't wear sandals.)

Starting to install the batteries. The aluminum pieces on the paper towels are the battery tray sides. You can see the first 2 wheels attached… More to follow!

Center batteries installed and the green wires are the jumpers to create 24 volts from battery pairs.

CAREFUL - THERE IS A LOT OF CURRENT LOOSE IN THERE!

You can see through the access panel in the top one of the motors mounted inside behind the ESC (Electronic Speed Controller).

A few interesting things appear in this picture: The access panel mount down bolts are installed. The high current battery connector and emergency shut off is visible, only half wired (The big red plastic thing). The green jumper wires are all connected to one row of 5 batteries and waiting for another row of batteries to be installed.

Connector being attached to the other 6 gauge power wire. This connector carries 2 positive wires and no negative. The two 6 gauge wires run to the two ESCs. Can't have enough power or redundancy.

Here the negative wires are fed through the body from the front row of batteries. These are connected directly to the speed controllers (2 negative wires per ESC). Five 10 gauge wires run from the front battery row to a copper tube coupler that splits it into four 10 gauge wires to feed the controllers. The Vantecs say to use 10 gauge to power them so this should be plenty of gauge for the job.

Here you get a peek at the row of batteries. The body is designed to fit 5 7Ah batteries across. They fit with only 1/2 inch to spare side to side. This space is filled with two pieces of cardboard later.

This is a picture from the side showing the mounting of the hot side of the battery coupler (upper right inside). This is where the hot battery wires all come in. You can see the negative leads and the jumper leads as well. The second row of batteries are still not installed in this picture but you can see the battery hold down bolt holes where the bar presses down on them to keep them in place and the wires from coming off the batteries.

This is a view from one of the front motor mount holes showing the front battery row. All the green jumpers are installed and the negative leads are just lying over the top. They will soon be connected to the negative battery terminals.

Here is a good picture of the hot side of the battery coupler mounted to the top of the body. The two leads are not yet installed into this side of the coupler.

All batteries installed and power cables connected. At this stage I had to make it roll… only 4 motors and wheels. Good enough for a rip. Just toss the radio in and go!

Test run done on 4 wheels. Time to put 4 more wheels in the beast…

The black and white wires carry the power from the speed controllers to the motors. There are couplers on each output from the speed controllers so the motors and wheels can be swapped out. I have 10 motors but the bot only has room to run on 8.

Here the crash bar mounts are getting a coat of black paint.

Now all 8 wheels and motors are mounted. The mess of receiver and junk are all getting ready to be stuffed inside.

View of the assembled bot with one motor removed so you can see the batteries and jumper wires.

Screwing something to one of the Vantecs.