10/29/02 - Blades, Frame, Engine, and Wheels - w00t For Kenovations!:

I know I have been way behind on updates. I let the pictures pile up, and before I knew it doing a few build reports turned into a huge task! At the time I am writing this, the robot is actually 99% finished. The work that took place in this progress report spanned over the course of the last three months.

The bulk of this report will pertain to the latest batch of Kennovations (thank you Kenneth Peek!) I received, and what will put the BITE into the new Village Idiot. Up to this point I had been working mostly on the frame/baseplate, now it was time to starting mounting everything that makes a killer robot, a KILLER robot ;)

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1) To start things off, let's have a stare-n-compare of OLD frame vs. NEW frame. You can see in addition to being bigger than the old frame, the new frame is much straighter. The old one kinda has the taco effect going, eh? :)	2) The old frame was made primarily out of 3/4" x 3/4" 11GA mild steel tubing. Overkill for a MW, really (IMO).	3) The thickness and size of the steel made for a very heavy frame, with the baseplate attached.	4) In the new frame, I used 5/8" x 5/8" 16GA tubing through most of the robot, instead.
5) Using the lighter steel allowed me to make the dimensions of the robot bigger, and SAVE some weight. The extra weight would go into the new, more agressive, weapon.	6) One of the coolest parts on the new robot will be the blades that my good friend Kenneth Peek machined.	7) Each disc is made of 2 sandwiched 3/8" fortal aluminum discs. You can see the pockets that were milled out of the disc, are more towards the center of the disc to keep the weight on the outside of the weapon. Higher MOI = Good Thing :)	8) Kenneth milled pockets into the blades, for the weapon teeth to fit inside. To keep them from pulling out, he made the tooth and pocket a sort of triangular shape.
9) This is one of the hubs that sandwich each blade (a hub goes on either side of the blade). Two holes are clearance holes, and the other two are tapped. Including the thickness of the hubs, 2.75" of material rides on the shaft, for EACH blade.	10) Once I got my hands on the blades, I had to put them together and throw them on some shaft to see what they looked like. :) nothing is keyed in this pic, but I took care of that...	11) ... with my new press! The press is nothing fancy, just an el cheapo one from Northern Tool, but I LOVE it!	12) Cutting your own keyway = good times :)
13) Keyway.... *droool*	14) Yay! The keystock fits through perfectly.	15) Both blades (and hubs) with keyway's cut, align perfectly! Can you find the idiot in this pic?	16) The obligatory "saw BLADE totin' idiot" pic, with a twist.
17) Which weapon do you think would pack a bigger wallop?	18) I welded together some extra supports to go under the weapon mounting spots on the frame.	19) I then welded a flat to the bottom of the supports, that will rest on top of the baseplate.	20) I am using 3/4" x 1/4" steel flat to mount the drive pillow blocks to, here is the first piece welded into the frame. I welded the weapon supports to the pillow block support, for extra... um... support :)
21) Other side welded into place.	22) Hopefully this will keep the frame from "tacoing" in when a solid hit is delivered.	23) Changing gears, here is the start of a new pipe for the chainsaw. I'm using the gasket that was with the old muffler, to make some marks on this steel plate where holes need to be made.	24) Then I cut a piece of 3/4" x 3/4" steel tubing to use as the new pipe. It will be welded to the steel flat in the previous pic. I had to use a different exhaust system, as the factory muffler directed the exhaust INSIDE the robot.
25) Tubing welded to the steel flat. The hole for the exhaust in the steel flat is ROUGH right now, I still needed to port it so the exhaust would flow smoothly out the pipe.	26) I was a little worried that the new pipe would not provide enough back pressure that 2-strokes need for the engine to run right, but I certainly can't afford a tuned pipe! I figured I would just try it, and if it worked I would keep it...	27) Mounting holes drilled.	28) Using the Dremel to port the exhaust pipe.
29) Getting there... Sparky!	30) Ready to paint!	31) I taped off the face of the pipe, that bolts to the head, and used some high temp flat black paint to spiffy it up.	32) Ready to mount!
33) Backside of finished pipe.	34) Now I just get all the pieces...	35) ... line em' up ...	36) ... and bolt em' on!
37) After I got the pipe on, I found that it makes an excellent handle for the engine when moving it around (of COURSE not after I just ran it... D'UH!)	38) I also used my press to put the keyway in the cool hubs Kenneth made for the robot. Yay for Kenneth!	39) Finished wheels! :D	40) Yay! My 3.6AH 24V NiCad BattlePacks came in! Nothing like getting a package with "RPS" on the front of it! :)
41) I cut some more of the 3/4" x 1/4" steel flat supports for the pillow blocks, that get welded into the frame.	42) Lining up a couple of the rear supports up be welded into place.	43) All eight supports welded in! Each support gets two holes drilled through it from the underside of the baseplate, the holes are countersunk, and the support is tapped then screwed to the baseplate. It will make sense in a second... :)	44) I made a hole drill guide out of a piece of 3/4" x 3/4" 6061 aluminum square.
45) The guide will be placed on the underside of the baseplate, to assist in drilling through the center of the steel flat welded to the frame on the other side. I promise, it WILL make sense in a second... :)	46) The guide clamped to the frame...	47) These holes go through the baseplate, and the steel pillow block support.	48) Then the baseplate gets countersunk, the steel on the other side of the baseplate is tapped, and a 1/4" 20 screw is screwed into the steel, keeping it firmly against the baseplate.
49) Argghh! Stupid cheap taps!	50) Buncha holes drilled, and some countersunk...	51) Countersinking the rest of the holes...	52) Go, Go, Gadget Countersink!
53) Done countersinking!	54) Tapping the last few holes...	55) Using the Dremel to cut off the excess screws, sticking through the top of the steel flat.	56) This is the 1" keyed shaft from Team Delta that Village Idiot will use to spin the weapon discs. I'm getting ready to cut it to size.
57) MAN this shaft is hard stuff! It took quite a while to finally get all the way through it.	58) You can tell by the discoloration, this sucker got pretty hot while cutting!	59) A cut piece of 1/4" keystock that goes through each of the weapon discs.	60) Pic of the keystock through the disc and hub.
61) Woohoo! The weapon assembly is finished! It is completely ready to be mounted on the robot, and spun up.	62) Unga bunga HEAVY!	63) The finished weapon assembly bolted to the frame.	64) Here's one last shot of the finished weapon assembly, on the bot. Yay for Kenneth art! :)