Team Wazio - Brushless

Do You Need A Brushless?

Many people think that in order to have the best robot and to cause the most damage, especially in the smaller classes that you need to have a brushless motor. However I have found this not to be totally true; I believe that the success of your robot depends more on the quality of your construction and the most importantly it's durability more so than how fast your weapon is spinning. If your robot can't take hits from other bots how can you expect it to take the shock from its own weapon hitting other bots? Many people build spinning weapon robots without realizing that they have to build some of the toughest robots in the sport. A spinning robot must be able to take not only the force of its own weapon but the force of all other opponents weapons, and possibly the force of both weapons hitting one another at the same time!
The point of this is that you don't need an expensive brushless system to be competitive. Brushless motors are good, I use them in many of my robots, but they are not necessary for your robot to be good. If you have a good design with quality construction you can beat the best, most expensive brushless bot out there.
Below is a short build report from my antweight Get Stuffed-v3. Get Stuffed-v2 used the popular axi set up, which after 2 unsuccessful events I decided to return to the brushed motor set up which I have continued to have good results with.

Get Stuffed v3

For version 3 of Get Stuffed I wanted to take everything that I had learned from the first 2 versions and apply it to a bot that would drive better, hit harder and have a super strong frame. I decided to go back to the simple and cheap VDD weapon system that uses a speed 400 motor. I have made up my mind that you are able to get pliantly of ant killing power from this system at a fraction of the cost that you would pay for a brushless system.

I have also found that the tayama drive units are to large and slow for my personal taste, I upgrade the drive to some really nice Maxon motors that I bought from BaneBots. They are small, light, have all metal gears and you can run them at just about any voltage you want. The only down side is the cost. At $39 bucks a shot you take a big risk running them with no armor to protect them, but I must say that I have never had a problem with them; even though they have been in some massive hits and taken direct hits. I think that they would be a great choice for almost any ant. Even though I really like the maxon motors I recently bought some BaneBot 16mm 24:1 gearmotors. In testing they have proven to be fast enough and can take the 11.1v I run with no problem. Another great thing about this unit is the cost! At only $11.55 you can afford to be a little more careless with them. You can also swap the motors and you have the option of many different gear ratios.

Now that I had my weapon and drive picked out I made a frame that was rather small, my logic behind this was that with a smaller size I would be able to use more carbon fiber rod and would have less area to armor. The only draw back to such a small frame is that it is not exactly easy to drive. But I was able to make a robot that has a nice shape and can do everything that I want it to.

I also wanted to try something new on this version. I have seen the orange belts that you buy from McMaster used on Gene's bot with great success, I decided that they would be good enough for me to use to get my 4 wheel drive. I simply put a slot in all 4 wheels and made the belts to fit. It would work alot better if I had made the slots line up, they work well enough even though they fall off often.

With the mix of titanium armor, fast drive, and good weapon power I have been able to run version 3 for many events with no or little changes. With the help of my hot chick stickers and car # 3 power I have been able to drive Get Stuffed to a #6 rank.

Get Stuffed's components include:
- .016" Ti armor.
- Custom Ti blades.
- 4 wheel drive.
- Apogee 11.1v Li-p batt pack.
- Micro Reciever.
- Speed 400 weapon motor.
- Hot chick sticker
- Scorpion HX drive and weapon ESC.
- Light flight wheels.
- Daves hubs.
- Maxon drive motors.
- Deans antenna.

Get Stuffed v2

On version 2 of Get Stuffed I decided to go with a high power brushless weapon motor; an axi 2208/20. I kept the same drive set up that was in Version 1. It used the tayama drive, light flight wheels and had 4 wheel drive. I also made a totally new frame to support the new motor. Overall I was really disappointed with the Axi and Version 2 itself. Looking back now I can see that I have caused LOTS more damage with a cheap speed 400 motor than the expensive brushless. I sold Get Stuffed to team Udanis in order to pay for Version 3 of Get Stuffed.

Get Stuffed's components include:
- .016" Ti armor.
- Custom Ti blades.
- 4 wheel drive.
- Apogee 11.1v Li-p batt pack.
- Micro Reciever.
- Axi 2208/20 brushless motor.
- Phoenix 25amp weapon ESC.
- Scorpion HX drive ESC.
- Light flight wheels.
- Tayama drives.
- Deans antenna.

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