Progress!

It seems I am finally making some big(ish) steps towards starting construction on this machine. Along with cutting and sand blasting the last 3 parts for the base of the chassis,  I successfully tracked down, well I say tracked down, was told about is more accurate, a pair of speed controllers to drive the robots motors properly!

The device in question is a Sabertooth 2x12 RC. Dimension Engineering, the makers of the Sabertooth range, have obviously thought about the slightly more obscure uses there devices could be used for and have produced a speed controller (or ECU as it says on the packet) specifically for featherweight robots. The instruction leaflet says 'Sabertooth 2x12 RC is designed for combat robots from 16oz to 16lb, (13.6kg for us of the metric disposition, me included)' It has 2, 12 Amp speed controllers built into one small unit which is very handy and has bunch of features built in to make it more reliable make the robots easier to drive and keep itself from burning out. But possibly the biggest plus with this speed controller is that it is that it assumes that you are using it to do tank style steering, so rather than you having to fiddle around mixing the inputs and outputs on the transmitter you simply connect one cable to the Elevator channel on your receiver and the other to the Airleron channel. The onboard chip then interprets it for you and mixes it accordingly, all digital proportional of course. This one I got for a tad over £50, again from Technobots, which has also provided the next step.


It seemed sensible to just use one set of batteries on the robot rather than having separate power sources for the motors, receiver and weapons. BEC's or 'battery elimination circuits' were invented to do just that, well for the receiver anyway. The one that I went for was a ParkBEC 6V, again by Dimension Engineering and also from Technobots. The tiny little device siphons off power from the power going in and out of the ESC and takes it down from what ever you put in to 6V, this is then sent out again to the receiver. This little device cost £15 and saves on the annoyance of having to charge multiple batteries and having different chargers and also can save you on some crucial weight.


Both of these arrived today to add to the mounting pile of parts. Next on the list is the batteries and some high amp, multi-core wire for all the circuitry and from then things will actually start to move!!!