Completion - The Building of New Cruelty - robots

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

Completion

Who let the bots out?!

Lock up the kids and get out of the way! It is coming right for you!

When I took it on the road a guy almost crashed his car rubbernecking the bot.
[ The antenna is not permanent like that... FYI. ]

Because in the back no part of the body extends beyond the rubber tires the first thing to make contact with a wall is the rubber. This bot can climb steps if heading in reverse at them.

This had to be done! Turning was very scary as it turns very quickly and the wheels counter rotate right next to your butt.

Back in the garage after a good 20 minute drive. I think the battery run time is fine!

It wouldn't be a combat robot without the gratuitous Lexan access panel cover. Here is the stock Lexan sheet.

I especially like the words "Advise local fire officials of lexan glazing installations" on the label… I didn't "advise" anyone of the installation! Come and get me copper!

Attaching bumper to the body. This uses 6 half inch bolts with rubber isolation gaskets on the mounts.
[ More pictures from this stage: -1- -2- -3- ]

In truck. I took it to work (DataWave Technologies) to show it to a few people. I also took it to my father's house to route the edges of the Lexan to round them nice. I thought he should see the bot at least.

The Lexan sheet, post routing, to make the edges nice and pretty.

This is 2/3 of the killerbotics robots… "New Cruelty" (right) and "No Bull" (left).

The riding lawn mower and the gas grill felt the wrath of "New Cruelty" that day!

The only way I can get it in and out of the truck at this time is to hoist it up on tie down straps and then drive the truck in and out underneath it. This is the major drawback to heavyweight robots.

Drilling the Lexan mount holes… Careful, don't scratch it. The only damage scars I want on New Cruelty are from opposing robots and from battle.

Lexan cover mounted. There are 8 1/4 inch flat head bolts holding it on.

Time to weigh the beast on a real scale. Greenheck Fan Corporation allowed us to weigh on a calibrated scale in shipping.

After a long stroll in the shipping and receiving department we finally get to the scale. Roll it on up and what do we get?… Battlebots requires less than 325 pounds… Cross your fingers… The calculated weight was about 300 pounds…

Hard to see in the picture but it reads 320! Huge applause from the crowd… YES!

Looks like the uncalculated stuff, like wire and battery mount-down hardware added up to about 20 pounds.

Still on the scale… Oops, forgot the Lexan cover. It better not weigh more than 5 pounds. (It doesn't).

Ahh... The new 60 Amp auto-resetting breakers are in! These are Bussmann breakers. Specifications PDF. These are Bussmann breakers. Specifications PDF.

I am not interested in running without breakers just to see my "worth their weight in gold" Vantec controllers smoke in a battle. It is better to have a safeguard, in my opinion, than to be foolish in battle.

Here is the first breaker installed, behind one of the Vantec's, replacing the old non-self-resetting breakers. It was a tight fit but just like everything else so far on this project it fit like a glove!

This is a good look at the breaker with the main power wire connected. The design was intended to have very short power wires from the breakers to the Vantec's power inputs. I think this will do. The wire is only about 2 inches long and 8 gauge wire (where Vantec requested 10 gauge).

The radio control compartment. This is just simply plexi glass. It is very nice to work with and glue/bond together. The idea here was to create a box to hold wires and other things away from the receiver and antenna.

This is the radio compartment populated and bolted inside New Cruelty. This install had the antenna running around the outside of the box. This didn't work well at all.

This is what I have taken to when needing to move the beast I call New Cruelty. The 320 pound monster is just too hard to pick up and these ramps were needed. (I'm not complaining!)

See, this wire isn't really hooked to anything or needed. Without this here it runs fine but gets a bit twitchy at times at a distance. With the insert it will go over 100 yards no problem, no twitches.

My 8 amp 24 volt Interacter charger. It is nice but too small to charge the 10 7Ah SLA batteries New Cruelty uses to run on in a reasonable amount of time.

Ramming plate installed. Still rusty from the material sitting outside for years at the place I got it. This plate, and the other, cost only $10 all cut to my needed size!

Both ramming plates. The intent was to have a full plow blade on the front. The spring was interesting so I went with that but then had to protect the tires with something. This is 1/4 inch steel.

Painted. This is where the trouble started... See the picture on the right. Umm... What is the problem here? ... Yes, my wife, Rose noticed while cleaning them that the right plate is not as thick as the left plate! Poop...

The new thicker plate... Now I have a matching set!

Ramming plates all attached and ready to ram. I went right out and reverse steered into the rear end of my truck putting a cool mark on one of the plates and moving the truck 6 inches sideways... Yes sliding it on the pavement.

I didn't reweigh it but as it sits like this it must be about 330 or 340 pounds. For Battlebots I will replace the plates with something thinner. I find it hard to believe the plates need to be 1/4 inch thick here. They are mounted on a spring after all.

The new charger. This one is a 25 amp charger. This replaced the first 8 amp charger. With TEN 7Ah batteries on board New Cruelty the 8 amp charger turned out to be sick how long it took to charger. I hopped the new 25 amp one would charger better and faster. The charging time (from completely dead) is only 1 hour 15 minutes, down from 2 hours and 30 minutes.

This shows the new charger (left) and the old charger (right). The new one is a bit bigger. Boys and their toys...

The temperature sensor in place. Nice to know how hot the speed controllers are!

OK - now let's see kick some bot butt!

I think we're ready for the first competition - Twin-City Mechwars!