Melty Beetle Pre-fight
Published by rich on Friday, February 8, 2008 - 07:47:38
The build for Melty Beetle is done. The Northwest Hobby Expo fight’s this Saturday weekend.
(If by chance you’ve just fumbled into this, Melty Beetle is a 1-wheel, 1-motor, 3lbs translational drift combat robot sponsored by the SpamButcher spam killer)
Decided to skip doing another video for now (there should be some from the event soon enough). Earlier video is here.
Had the standard last-minute demons appear. I replaced my well-worn testing motor with a fresh one - which promptly overheated and fried (think I got loctite too far up the shaft).
Then I started having some problems with the motor drivers overheating (was concerned it was the motor itself locking up again) - but I’ve concluded the real problem is the motor drivers aren’t happy under 7 volts (understandable - they’re rated for 120v) - and quickly overheat when the battery gets under 40% capacity.
That still gives me about 5 minutes at around 75% power.
I don’t think I’d done long enough continuous test runs to hit this earlier…
There’s also a reasonable chance I haven’t totally figured this out - and the bot will spontaneously overheat / shutdown 15 seconds into the first match.
Final photos:
