back to Malvolio

	I was originally going to machine enclosures for the OSMC's. I started with this five pound chunk of aluminum.
	Then I emptied the center of guts and wound up at 1.4 pounds.
	After putting vents like this all the way around I was still at .6 pounds and I decided I didn't have the weight budget for 1.2 pounds of ESC enclosure and another .5 pounds for the MOB enclosure. I think I'll make a nice pen box out of this or something...
	Some of the tools a good bot builder wouldn't be caught without...
	Getting ready to make some 20 cell battery packs. These are for the weapon.
	Mounting the dual motor drives.
	Mounting the dual motor drives. Having drilled everything on the mill it was a real departure from past efforts when everything fit the first time.
	I decided I needed some belt tensioners so cut a couple of blocks like this.
	Then milled out a channel and cross drilled a hole for bushings then put in the bushings. The axle is next to the block.
	The completed tensioner. This is one of four.
	Two tensioners installed. Two more will be mounted on the other side.
	The frame with some small 1/8" x 1/2" brackets welded in place to serve as mounts for electronics and batteries.
	The bottom plate all drilled, machined and counter sunk, ready for final assembly
	My first weighing. This wouldn't be so bad except for the fact that the middle weight limit is 120 pounds... I'm seeing holes in my future.
	One OSMC on the left and the MOB (Modular OSMC Brain) near the top. These aren't mounted but this is where they'll go.
	A side view. OSMC on the right and the MOB on the left.
	With more weapon drive power I decided I needed bigger and meaner weapon hammers. Here cutting one of the three facets on the business end.
	Cutting hammers.
	And a finished hammer.
	Here cutting some flats in the 1" Ti spinning bar. The idea here is to keep the hammers from twisting around the bar on impact. I cut the 1" bar down to .75" then I'll cut a 1" x .75" hole in the hammers for mounting.
Video 1.4MB	The sounds and smoke of cutting Titanium. Where I might cut up to .250" out of aluminum, I couldn't cut anymore than .015 in the titanium. I really had to take my time and use lots of cutting oil. Even with that after cutting four 2" long flats my carbide end mill was about done.
Video 1.4MB	The first test drive of Malvolio with new dual motor drives and OSMC Speed controller. This is on Easter Sunday. I thought I could use all the help I could get. :-)
Video 1.4MB	More of the first test driving of Malvolio 2002 1A.

	Using the boring bar to finish the bore of the dual motor mounts.
	The boring bar can generate a butt load of chips in a hurry...
	After cutting off the excess material and cutting the original piece in half I now have a fairly finished dual motor mount. I can't get over how smooth and clean the finish is using a mill. The original motor mounts I cut with a hole saw were as rough as 40 grit sand paper on the inside radius.
	Mounts with motors and empty.
	Mounted motors.
	A perfect fit.
	I probably could have made these pieces without the mill be not in a day and a half, and with not nearly as nice a finish.
	The finshed product.
	And one more time.

	The blank AL pieces that will become two dual motor mounts to drive the weapon.
	One half of one mount is cut with the hole for the spinning shaft as well.
	Cutting a 1" hole for the spinning shaft. I'll put this on the NEW MILLING MACHINE and finish the hole to 1.25" with a boring bar.
	One half of the one mount cut.
	One mount rough cut. Both the shaft hole and the motor cutouts are rough cut. I'll finish them with a boring bar and the NEW MILLING MACHINE.
	One mount cut with one bearing sitting on it. The new spinning shaft is going up to 1" diameter from .75"
	Two dual motor mounts cut.
	Two dual motor mounts.
	Two dual motor mounts cut and awaiting finishing on the NEW MILLING MACHINE.
	A blank piece of AL 6061 that will become two dual motor mounts for the drive. The drive is going from one EV per side to two. The motors will be driven by the new OSMC speed controller.
	The two motor hole rough cut to 3.75" I'll finish them to 4" with a boring bar on the NEW MILLING MACHINE.
	Hey, look, somebody put a big crate in my garage. I wonder what ever could it be???
	Yup that's a wooden crate from Atlanta Georgia. My but that is a long way for a crate to travel...
	Ohmygosh! Why it's a MILLING MACHINE!!!
	And a lovely milling machine it is too!
	Boys and girls that is a 16 3/4" swing ENCO milling machine with a 2HP motor wired for 110V. And it'll pull enough current to pop most of the circuit breakers in your house. Guess how I know that?!?
	There she is all nestled in her new home. I had to rent an engine hoist from a local equipment rental place because even though that's not a full sized knee mill, it still weighs almost 700 pounds. Good thing I have a five year old to help...
	Sam is almost as excited about the new milling machine as I am.

	Malvolio is now four wheel drive. Rolls very smooth now compared to when I was using casters up front.
	The left side of a four wheel drive Malvolio.
	A mostly assembled Malvolio. Just getting ready for some more driving practice.
	The front of Mal. You can see the front is quite a bit more crowded with the addition of the front wheels and associated hardware.
	And the rear of a four wheel drive Malvolio. When I upsized the drivetrain components I lost a lot of room in the back. So I had to move the batteries and the Vantec. Here you can see the drive batteries will be about an inch away from the rear 1/4" Aluminum armor. Should be safe...
	I was having trouble keeping the front to rear drive belts tensioned so I fabricated these jack screw type tensioners. They're bolted to the bottom plate with 8mm bolts and use 6mm bolts to push the pillow blocks into place. Very simple and quite effective. The pillow blocks do not move at all now and the belts stay nice and taught.
	Another view of the left tensioner. Move of a top down view.
	And the right side tensioner.

	This picture show Malvolio's now stripped frame and the new bottom armor plate. The bottom plate will also hold all the drivetrain hardware.
	These are the new wheels one of which has a new hub/pulley installed on it. I'm using sheaves to attach the pulley's to the axles and then bolting the wheel to the sheaves. Sheave, pulleys, and wheels all from McMaster-Carr
	The new 16 pitch 60 tooth drive gears all drilled out and ready to be mounted.
	The axle/gear/pulley/bearing/wheel assemblies. Two of these will be be driven by the EV Warrior motors and two similar assemblies without gear will be driven of these pulleys.
	This is sort of how the drive train for one side will look.
	I layed out most of the hardware, batteries, and motors to see how everything might fit.
	Another view of the layout.
	One half of the drive train mounted to the bottom plate. This was a bit tricky because the motor and the wheel assemblies and all hard mounted in place. There is no adjustment if belt tension or gear alignment is off.
	Another view of one side of the drive train.

	I've begun the upgrading of Malvolio for Battlebots. Here is the old weapon belt, XL series, on the left and the new L series belt on the right
	I'm also upgrading the drive gears since this is where I suffered most of my failures at Robotica. The top two are the old 20 pitch gears, and along the bottom are the new 16 pitch gears. The new gears are heavy so I drilled a bunch of holes in them to lighten them up. I've got plenty of weight budget so the real reason I lightened the gear was to loose weight that needs to be driven by my motors.
	In going from two wheel drive to four wheel drive and still using two drive motors I need to connect the rear wheels to the front. That's what these one inch wide belts are for.
	Here's what my gears would look like after loosing some teeth. Now I know what hockey players feel like. Well sort of...
	Here's another angle on those teeth. This is why I'm going from 20 pitch gears to 16 pitch.

	I took some beauty-shots of Malvolio before we took him out and ran him through his paces last weekend.
	Another angle.
	Another angle.
	Another angle.
VIDEO:	This is a live fire demonstration of Malvolio's weapon. As long as my opponents are ugly old cookie jars I should have no problems!!!
VIDEO:	A high speed drive by, just listen to that doppler!
	The remains of the cookie jar.

	This is the art I'm using to have a 3' by 3' banner made to display in the studio at Robotica.
VIDEO:	Some weapon testing video, man that thing is scary!
VIDEO:	More weapon testing video. If I get hot I can just fire up this weapon, makes a nice fan from five feet away.
	The internals, viewed from the right side.
	These are the solenoids I'm using to remotely disconnect main power from the weapon and drive systems. They are also turned off by an on board toggle switch.
	The R/C side of my electronics. Visable are the R/C Reciever, the Team Delta R/C H-Bridge and R/C Relay.
	Team member, John Hoffman, working on the battery packs.
	John doing some soldering.
	The front of Malvolio with some lexan plates in place.
	I took some shots for a friend of mine who is doing a 3D model of Malvolio. This is the front view.
	This is the top view.
	And the left side view.
	Most of the electronics for Malvolio, R/C on the right, power on the left as viewed from the rear.

	Frame with some armor plates mounted.
	Frame with some armor plates mounted. Another angle.
	One of the last shots with the frame still black. The various pieces of armor are lying near their mounting location
	Another view of the unpainted frame, with armor.
	Here the frame just before it get painted for the final time. Malvolio Yellow. If you're wondering why I might choose Yellow for the frame there are a couple of reasons. First, I think yellow is a very sporty color! Think Ferrari, or Ford Mustang Cobra. Okay, the real reason is the character in Shakespeare's 12th night, who is the namesake of Malvolio comes out on stage in Yellow tights. I think that is just too funny to pass up!
	The frame after painting. Looks pretty good in the picture. You can't see all the runs and droops and stuff...
	Another angle of the now yellow frame.

	Here is the, for the most part, completed weapon assembly. Items of note. The bearings are oil impregnated bronze in aluminum pillow blocks (McMaster-Carr). The shaft in the bearings is 3/4" stainless steel. The weapon shaft itself is 1/2" titanium (6AL). Drive motor is one of the EV Warrior bike motors that are pretty popular. The reduction, via XL 1/5 timing belt, is 3:1. This should spin the weapon at around 1200 to 1400 RPM. My calculations indicate up to 1100 pounds of force being tranfered in a direct blow. Please keep your children and small animals back...
	A close up of the weapon drive and support.
	Another close up of the weapon drive.
	Here's Malvolio with all the drive train and suspension removed. The frame has been painted black to prevent the continuing rust. SOCAL weather is great for rusting steel. The armor on top is 1/4" Lexan and that piece on the front of the wedge is 1/4" 6AL Titanium. I call that my anti-ZiggLash.
	Malvolio with most of his armor on. For the TLC Robotica, most of the armor will be 1/4", either lexan, aluminum or Titanium. The side armor is 1/8" aluminum. For BattleBots all the aluminum will be replaced by Lexan. Unless, or course, I'm totally overweight, then I'll just leave the aluminum and wallah! I'm a middleweight...

VIDEO: 1st bench test	Here it is the very first bench testing of Malvolio's drive. Hey, it seems to work!
VIDEO: driving on garage floor	Just doing some circles in the garage before I tempt fate and run him up and down my street...
VIDEO: Some bad driving	I'm filming and driving at the same time and since I'm doing this testing using a couple of Tekin Rebels, read no channel mixing, driving can be exciting.
VIDEO: high speed run	If I can get him lined up he goes in a straight line quite nicely. Eventually I'll be using a Vantec and a R/C helicopter gyro so control should get better. Currently running the drive at 12V but this will be doubled once I start using the Vantec
VIDEO: more driving	And some more driving. He spins in place pretty fast. I've got a lot of time before the next competition to really learn how he handles, what he does well, and what he does not so well....
	Another shot of Malvolio on my work bench. This is during the bench testing. Every good robot has a picture on blocks. (Note: I just classified my bot as good. To me anyway...)
	On bench, top view. Note from outside in, the four battery packs, the two Tekin Rebels, the Hitec Reciever. Then just forward duct taped to the front board is the reciever battery. The wood is for mock up purposes only and WILL NOT remain in the battle configuration.
	Front view, I drove Malvolio up to me and he looked so happy I just had to take this picture. Again you can see the batteries, Rebels, and reciever stuff. You can get a good view of the spaghetti I call wiring... This will also be cleaned up in the battle configuration.
	A nice shot of the bottom, you can see the ball transfers used for front wheels. The left front of the frame is about 1/8" higher then the rest so the left front caster doesn't actually touch the ground most of the time. I'll shim the caster down but it's nice to know it drives just fine like this in case I take some serious damage. You can see some scratches in the frame. I put a lot of scratches in the curbs in front of my house too...

	One of the hubs I had made for the Colson 5" wheels. These were made by RobotsParts.org. I highly recommend them. They do excellent work at a very reasonable price.
	Another view of one of the hubs.
	The hub installed in the Colson Wheel.
	Another view of the wheel hub assembly.
	The other side of the wheel.
	One Gear/Axle/Wheel assembly.

	This is sort of a top view with Malvolio on his back on my work bench. The new stick welder made this go quite a bit faster.
	Side view on the bench.
	Top view. In case you're wondering the dimensions of Malvolio are 24"Lx18"Wx8"H.
	A completed motor mount. Probably a little more sturdy and beefy then really needed but they look cool...
	End view of the motor mount.
	Back on the bench with some of his innards arranged near their mounting positions.
	Rear view with innards in place. (note: they are not mounted)
	Top view with innards.
	Left side transmission. 20 pitch gears, 4:1 reduction ratio.
	Right side transmission, geared similarly to left side so as not to drive around in circles. This is generally a bad thing.
	Top left view. Am I being redundant yet?
	Top rear view with innards.

Malvolio Top View pdf	I did my initial drawings in visio to get a proportional feel for the design and layout. Here is a top view in PDF
Malvolio Side View pdf	And a side view in PDF
	Finally decided to take some pictures so I just started putting stuff on my work bench and taking some pics... This is the lethal 22 pound block of 6061 that sliced my finger about a half inch on a burr. Behind it is my Hitec Prism 7x Radio.
	My brand new bench grinder from Harbor Freight. I had to re-center both wheels before it stopped vibrating. But for 29 bones, it can't be beat.
	My brand new drill press also from Harbor Freight. This puppy is as smooth as can be. Very happy with it, and at 49 bones, a steal.
	My Oxy/Acetylene torch set up and some assorted metal bits behind it.
	The EV Electric bicycle motors that are my main drive motors. One CW and one CCW. Industrial Liquidators has a ton of these.
	My 5" colson wheels and the 1/2" pillow block made by Team Delta. Very nice workmanship at a nice price.
	My Team Delta H-bridge. Super easy to get and use. This will eventually control my weapon motor but will be used to test the main drive till the Vantec comes in.
	These are 12VDC 2.5AH Hawker/Cyclon SLA's from Industrial liquidators. I'll be running 4, two in parallel and two in series to get 24VDC 5AH. I haven't done any endurance tests with these yet so I'm not sure if they'll actually stay.
	I went to Home Depot and the only 10" AL cutting blade they had was $129. So I went and bought 10 hacksaw blades and headed home.
	An hour later $129 didn't sound so bad.
	But I got through that puppy. Yes that's 2" thick, 5.5" tall! Just takes perseverance, and a little Limp Bizkit to keep the aggression up doesn't hurt...
	With frame base welded, just eyeballing some things.
	Once I cut that AL block, I had to put a 4" diameter hole in it. I don't own a milling machine but that new drill press pushed my 4" Blue Mol hole saw right through. Only took about an hour, and the neighbors hardly complained at all...
	If you're gonna take a mug shot gotta get both angles.
	Now those are some sweet (sweat) motor mounts. All ready to be lightened up with holes a plenty.
	Another view.
	and yet another.
	and still another.