pic: Classic Robot Restoration

[ratdude747]

Originally Posted by Jeffy

I am sure this exercise will serve you well in the future.

Mind telling us more about the belts that stick out the top? Are they used for drive? Was turning an issue? Did they stay on well? Where did you get them from?

It is a drop center tank tread drive

the bets do not stay on the grooved rollers very well. in fact, most of the robot did not work all that well. I was not on the team that year (i did not switch teams until summer '10), but i do know that in hind sight, the particular belts were not the best choice (but they got them for free from gates).

Since as electronics lead this year, I was captain and main worker on getting serial CAN working... and this bot only used 4 jags, so it was a good one to test on.

However, the source code was lost and the progamming lead (and sole programmer at the time) didn't care for the bot, so the code was a lost cause.

Once build season began and while designs were being put into CAD and tested, I had no job... until the team lead founds out I wanted to learn labview (the old team's student programmers never really wanted me to work with them). He let me use this bot to learn the skills on (with the help of some LVmastery and FRCmastery videos). during a week or so i had it driving 4 can jaguars using buttons to select different drive layouts.

However, later int he season, the jaguars were needed off this bot for the competition bot while new jags were on order. before long, the crio awas also removed for a practice chassis. I used this time to go back to this robot's mechanical, electrical, and pneumatic systems to see what i could to to make it better.

I found that:

1. the kicker was binding up on a bolt end scraping the kicker's mount to the frame, causing a loss of power.
2. the main piston was too large of a diameter for the task and was actually damaged.
3. they were controlling 3 double solenoids off of 2 thin 24 awg wires.
4. the pneumatics plumbing and mounting was in poor condition.
5. the wiring was in shambles as well.

what I did to fix them:

1. hacksaw'd the bolt end so it clears
2. replaced piston with an identical unit; if i ever get a hold of an identical piston in a 1" bore, I will swap it.
3. wired all solenoids independently, to allow more current to the solenoids and to allow different flow rates to adjust kicking power
4. I completely re-plumbed the system and added a never installed pressure sensor.
5. the iffy wiring was redone.

The weekend before I took the picture, I was able to re-install the electronics in the bot and debug some really nice code with 2 power kicking and the nicest dashboard this robot could ever have. I really learned a lot with the bot; it now does more than drive. it kicks!

the future of the bot will be a demo bot; if i can find a 1" bore 5" stroke (or is it 4"?) piston to replace the existing piston with, that will make it more pressure efficient and kick faster (i remember testing this on my old team).