Return of the Belt Drive

Today I humbly acknowledge I jumped the gun ordering the chain-driven scooter wheels & motors. When I received the chain version, I discovered the chains where the same length as the belts and the wheel axle was about the same as well (though the wheel itself was slimmer). So I got on the Club's forum and pleaded for enlightenment. In a short amount of time I was told to use a shorter belt (was given a size to try) and to replace the axle. I was also given a scooter drive bracket template to use to build my own.

Why didn't I ask for help in the first place? Stupid, stupid, stupid!

So with a pair of smaller belts on order, 399mm instead of the 447mm I bought, I now will try to return all the chain-driven scooter parts. If I can't return them, I should be able to sell them to someone in the club.

So today I went to the shop to try making some modifications to my belt wheels.
Here is a close-up of the brake drum on the wheel hub. The original Razor E100 belt wheel didn't have this part so I decided to try to cut it off.


Here is that long axle, now off the wheel. It was being held on by the two inner nuts. Once I took off the nuts the axle came right off. In it's place I'll put a shorter bolt of similar diameter.


The wheel without the axle. The brake drum I discovered is screwed on. I discovered this after I cut it off with my Dremel. Will note for the other wheel.


With the brake drum off I used my Dremel to cut off the extra 1/2" of hub. Now the hub is flush with the bearing.


I noticed something blocking the axle hole from inside the wheel so I removed the three bolts and the wheel hub became two pieces. Inside was a loose spacer the axle goes through.


Next time I'll do the same to the other wheel and build a bracket prototype out of 1/8" MDF using the design given to me. If this design works for me I'll order aluminum tubing for the final product.

John

Painting Begins Anew

Today's weather proved to be perfect for painting. The three panels I already started I gave another coat of Satin White. Once they dry I will lightly sand them and give them their final coat. I also took the two pieces I already primed and gave them their first coat of Blue Metallic paint.


I have just a few more panel pieces to JB Weld and then I will start priming and painting the remaining panels. I could start the main outer skin halves except I don't really have a good place to place them while they dry. Once I figure that out I will start them too.

New motors, chains and wheels on order. Will retackle the foot drive once they arrive.

John

I Give In

I just ordered the chain version of the scooter motors and wheels. Because the generic belt wheel I got is wider than the original Razor part, and because the belt is too big to have both wheel and motor close enough for both to fit inside the foot shell, I have to admit defeat in trying to make it work. Oh well. Live and learn. I did some reading today at Astromech.net and other people have said not to bother trying to get the belt version to work without the original wheel.

So now I have two motors, two belts and two wheels I cannot use or return. Drat. Well I know there are other people who use the belt motors (they have the original wheel). Maybe I can at least sell the motors and belts.

John

Let the Building Begin!

It's March. Shop time!

Today I started working on the motor/wheel mounting bracket for the foot drive. Unfortunately all I have to show for 3 hours of work is one big problem. I'm having trouble with the scooter wheels I got that are supposed to be compatible with the Razor E100. The axle is 4-1/4" long which is about all the room I have inside the foot shell. This leaves little room above the wheel to build a bracket (the foot shell walls slope in towards the top). Another problem is when the belt is pulled tight the motor is too far on one side to fit in the foot shell.

I'm not sure if I can find a way to make this work. I may need to consider another motor/wheel type. Uuurg. How did others make this work.

John

Blog Labels

I recently realized how hard it is to find specific information on my blog, so I started adding labels (or tags) to each post indicating the topics contained there-in. The listing of these labels are on the right-hand side of the screen.

This list is not yet complete. Thus far I've only labeled the last two years. I should have the rest of my postings labeled by next week. Enjoy.

John

[UPDATE: Labeling is complete]

New Year, New Challenges; Bring It!!!

Welcome to 2011! We're only 17 days into the year and already it's shaping up to be a fun and challenging one. Many things to report so without further delay, on with the show!

To start, my Dad was able to rent a space to setup the woodwork shop again. Its only half the size of my Grandparents garage, but it should work just fine. So once Spring comes I can jump right back into working in the shop.

This year I have some extra motivation to get more work done on R6. This May will be the very first DroidCon, a national 3-day R2 Builders gathering. It's purpose is for all members who can to be able to get together and learn from each other. Basically a geeky classroom show-and-tell. The location for this gathering of nut jobs will be Indianapolis Indiana so of course I'll be going (I live there after all).

Then in June the Mid-West Droid Builders Gathering will take place in Illinois. I plan on attending this as well if I can manage it.

Since Christmas, I've been tweaking the wiring in the body. First I installed these special high amperage connectors called Power Pole connectors. I used them for the main power to the fuse block and for the wiring going to the foot and head motors.


In this above shot, you can see the wiring for the foot motors on each side wrapping around to the other side of the shoulder supports where they will connect to the wiring that will be inside the legs. You can also see another set of wires hanging on the left side. That is for the head rotation motor.


Last week I finally received the scooter wheels I ordered. They're a bit bigger than I thought but should fit fine in the foot shell. These wheels came with brakes on them, but those are not needed so I easily removed them.


I couldn't resist hooking up the motor and testing the wheel on it.


Next up for the foot drive is buying the material to make the bracket to attach the motors and wheels to. I will need the shop to make this bracket so maybe in March I can start on that. Other goals before the DroidCon are getting the skins finished and installed, skinning the head, possibly remaking the head, and finishing the lights for the head. As far as the light go all I really have left to do is get more optical fiber for the rear Logic Display and make mounting plates for the optical fiber.

Link for the Power Pole connectors: http://www.robotmarketplace.com/products/connectors_powerpole.html

Link for the Scooter Wheels: http://www.monsterscooterparts.com/curewhasbedr.html

Later,

John

Wheel of Motion

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!

For Christmas I received a little spending money and what do you think i spent it on? That's right! I bought the scooter wheels I've been saving for. Just now ordered them.

So how was your Christmas???


John

Belts, Smoke and Dead Buttons

Got the belts for the scooter drive today. They're smaller than I imagined.

Yesterday while I was testing the motors I had the electronics tray sitting on top of the body. I accidentally pulled a wire causing the whole tray to fall back inside the body. As I was pulling it back out, a wire cap fell off and the exposed wire touched the battery level meter causing a puff of smoke. I quickly hit the main power switch (should of done that earlier when the tray fell) and inspected everything. Luckily nothing was damaged.

Later, I powered up the sound system but couldn't get the VMusic2 to trigger. After trouble shooting I discovered the problem was with a bad signal coming from the C6C receiver on ch5. Once I moved the wiring from ch5 to ch6 everything worked again....but what was wrong with ch5? After more trouble shooting I have concluded the problem is with the ch5 button on the PS2 WiFi controller itself. A bad button. I wonder how long before the ch6 buttons stop working? Oh the good times a hobby brings.

John

Learning to Walk

So yesterday I got those scooter motors and today I wired them up for testing. While I was at it, I, of course, made a video.



Here's some pictures.


Now for the inside details.
As I mentioned in the previous post, these are 24 volt 100 watt electric motors used in the Razor E-100 toy scooters. I have them connected to a dual channel Electronic Speed Controller (ESC), specifically the Dimension Engineering Sabertooth 2X25 (picture on right), which is then controlled by the C6C receiver. These motors are the belt driven version (now discontinued by Razor and replaced with chains). I chose belts over chains because I didn't want the extra noise. Belts are already on order (the official Razor ones) but the belt driven wheels are no longer available. However, I did find a generic compatible scooter wheel that should work just fine.

The ESC has a set of 6 jumper switches to configure the ESC for battery type, controller type, and other options. I had some trouble at first setting these correctly because I was looking at it upside down. So take note. Always make sure you know which way is on and off. Once I got that sorted out, I had to flip around the wiring on the left side motor so it would run in the same direction. Don't worry, most electric motors are polarity reversible. This is important to pay attention to because when I install the motors into the feet, they'll be facing opposite directions thus the wiring must be reversed on one of them.

Once I have the belts and wheels I'll have to build a frame to mount each motor and wheel to and then mount that into the feet. I don't have all of that figured out just yet, but with dozens of examples from other builders and a little trial and error, I should be able to manage it.

John

Christmas Present for a Droid

Lately I've been rethinking using the NPC2212 motors for my droid, mainly because they're almost $200.00 a piece. A cheaper option would be using electric motors off of those toy scooters, such as the Razor E-100. Fortunately this doesn't require changing anything I've already done. I can still use the same electronic speed controller, etc..

So I did some looking around and round some replacement scooter motors compatible with the Razor E-100 for less than $20.00. Even better is the website is offering free shipping for a limited time. Here's the link, http://www.partsforscooters.com/119-17?sc=2&category=77293.

Note that this motor uses a belt to drive the wheels. This may be a problem because Razor has discontinued belt drives and now uses chain drives for their current line of scooters. As a result, belt drive wheels are hard to come by. Very hard. So why did I get the belt motor instead of the chain? Mainly because a chain drive makes a lot more noise than a belt drive. For the wheels I plan to either find the wheels or build a home made wheel the belt can work on....famous last words... :)

Update: I found some generic wheels that are "compatible" with the Razor E-100, though not an exact copy of the original. But as long as it fits the belt it'll work. They're $40.00 a piece however so I'll have to take my time in acquiring them.

John