Quote:
Originally Posted by Lil Giants
How well would your waterjet cut plastic styrene?
A 4x8 sheet of .100 might be cheaper than steel.
If this trk is 80-90lbs when finished, then add another 50-60lbs of dirt to haul... that lil banebot motor might just aint gonna do it?! 
A tube axle with a banebot motor in each side to direct drive each wheel... hook both motors to a Sabertooth dual esc, with the mix on & the steering lead Y'd with the steering servo lead, that might work better than a differential itself & give you tonnes of grunt!  |
The waterjet can cut plastics and many other things like alm.,stainless,tool steel,marble,granite,wood,acrylic,rubber etc etc...not much it can't cut...
http://waterjets.org/index.php?optio...d=46&Itemid=53
Not sure on the cost for a sheet of styrene but a sheet of 12ga(.105") hot roll steel is about 100.00 CAN$
The little banebots motor/gear box could be a weakness in this build, even though is is small it has huge power...about 50 ft-lbs of torque with the 540 motor (yes 50 foot pounds) Banebots suggest limiting the torque to 35 ft-lbs but I will use it without a slip clutch for now. I will be adding an outer bearing to the output shaft to help support the load, which will help solve one possible problem and time will tell how the gears in the box will hold up under that much torque......
http://banebots.com/pc/P60K-S5/P60K-4444-0004
I did consider using two motors in the rear axle housing/tube much the same way as "modelman" used in his 777 truck which is a great idea!! Just couldn't find anything that would fit and be able to support the load at the same time.
Here is a useful tool for calculating motor /torque sizing....
http://www.robotshop.com/blog/en/dri...zing-tool-9698