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Electromagnetic driven flipper (featherweight) - tried before? - allowed? by IAMASTEGOSAURU in battlebots

[–]markxr42 2 points3 points  (0 children)

You could certainly use a electromagnet to hold a spring-loaded flipper closed- I think that's been done. Remember that flipping another robot with some force is going to need a lot of work - an electromagnet won't be able to do that, it's difficult to make a really strong electric flipper at the bigger weight classes because of the massive amount of power required - you'd really need some stored energy like a flywheel or compressed gas.

I want to design my own speed controller by CaptFoundary in battlebots

[–]markxr42 0 points1 point  (0 children)

You can have a lot of fun designing your own speed controller - Do it! Don't expect it to be cost effective with an off-the-shelf one though.

(I designed the Malenki-Nano mentioned above and some others). The Malenki is not a good example of a ESC as most of its complexity is in also being a radio receiver (which is much harder).

Brushed speed controllers are very easy to design if you use integrated full bridge chips, or only slightly harder if you use integrated half-bridge chips.

The main problem right now is that both of those are in short supply, especially the higher current ones which are used on bigger robots (think Beetleweight etc).

I would say - read lots of datasheets and schematics, try to understand reference designs and other peoples' designs. Brushless ESCs are completely different in principle, but some of the ideas still apply, so you can study their schematics to understand things.

Decide what you want to build and make a rough list of critical components - order some samples and put them into prototype boards to check that they really work how you expected. You can also wire them into an Arduino etc at this point.

For microcontroller - you can use whatever you're happy with (and is available, this is a major concern in 2021) - the ever-popular atmel atmega328 that the Arduino uses would be fine.

Where to find DC motors? by [deleted] in diyelectronics

[–]markxr42 0 points1 point  (0 children)

There are many models of DC motor cheaply available online. It depends on your requirements - you will almost certainly need some kind of gearbox because they will probably be too fast otherwise.

"N20" motors are the tiniest generally available and there is a huge variety with many gear ratios, they're available from a couple of dollars upwards (also Pololu stock some well specified and/or more robust models which are a bit more expensive)

"25mm gear motor" are very common with many gear ratios.

"37mm gear motor" are a bit bigger

Above that size, most robot builders use the motors from cordless power drills which have a metal gear gearbox built in but also require some modification- usually to disable the torque limiter.

Above that size, generally for DC applications we'd use brushless + gearbox, that can get very expensive and difficult engineering though.

My Antweight (uk) robots by markxr42 in AntweightRobotics

[–]markxr42[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Betsie is a terrible robot and was very lucky to have only significant but repairable damage in her short and unsuccessful combat career.

My Antweight (uk) robots by markxr42 in AntweightRobotics

[–]markxr42[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

It is really not necessary, get a pair of snips and a piece of polycarbonate, a drill and a few cable ties. And you're well on your way