The Building of Thunderbolt - robots

Bot: Thunderbolt
Status: Active
Weight: 118 lbs
Builder: Eric Pond
eric@killerbotics.com

The Battles of Thunderbolt
| Twin Cities Mech Wars III January 2002 |

Construction

I got the chassis all designed and welded up! Took me a long time to get all the belts/pulleys needed to make the drive train work. I am using a 1:7 gear ration with the NPC 02423 motors driving the 10 inch tires. Here is a view of the chain tenshioners and custom build pulley for the NPC motors.

Here are the 10 inch pneumatic tires I got from Northern Freight, the hubs I had custom built at Norlens. You can also see the 7 inch pulley I mounted to the 5/8" shaft.

The electronics went together nicely, I have learned from past experience with the IFI Victors to use inline Fuses! This little tidbit of information cost me 150$! Here you can see all the electronics mounted to a wood board, inside the finished bot.

Meanwhile painting has been going on, I got the chassis all black with some Thunderbolt ascent paint. Looks pretty dam cool!

Here is a little device for welding we call a Tortoise Device (TD), we use these for welding very hard corners:

Dick has designed the ultimate wedge, since this is a wedge bot, I wanted to make something very unique. The design helps push opponents into the middle of the bot, take a look.

Everything is all together, everything is looking good, then I tested......... Oh No! It won't turn very fast! This is going to be a problem. I noticed that the pushing power was there, but I just couldn't break the 10 inch tires free enough to make some fast turns! I was having problems...

The Battles of Thunderbolt
| Twin Cities Mech Wars III January 2002 |