Autonomous Bastard 2.0

first - the progress.

the "find the center of the box and drive there" routine works like a champ. from anyplace in the arena it can get to the center of the box in about 6 seconds (even if there's another bot foolishly trying to get in the way)

of course - once I change out the drive motors - all the work calibrating will have to be redone...

those cute little planetary tamiya gearboxes I found at Fry's seem to draw about 4 amps each at 7.2v. I'm doing some more tests to confirm this - but obviously that's kind of ridiculous for antweight drive motors.

this would explain why my scorpion ESC has been overheating...

I'm going to go with the 50:1 metal copals instead. will be a bit slower - but I'm using pretty big wheels - so I should still have good speed. should save about 2oz on weight.

I've also ordered the lexan mounts for the copals - so the gears will be enclosed (nothings worse than chewing up another bot, just to have the debris gum up your drivetrain)

further testing would suggest the tamiya planetary gearboxes draw a lot less than 4amps at 7.2v.

the gearbox has been running for over 30 minutes off a 600ma battery - so it presumably can't be drawing much more than 1amp.

I think confusion was due to my cheap digital multimeter being upset by noise from the motor.

the copal's are already on order though - and the 2oz saved can go towards a bigger blade...