Flea weights

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Pugster2002
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Flea weights

Post by Pugster2002 »

How much do flea weights cost
Pugster is 9 years old and is autistic,he can be blunt and sometimes seems rude,but he's just to the point!!!please try to be clear when talking to him.his obsession is robot wars and pugs!!thanks guys(pugsters mum!!)
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joey_picus
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Re: Flea weights

Post by joey_picus »

It depends entirely on what parts you use, they can cost anywhere from about £40 to hundreds and hundreds if you start from nothing :)

Catatonia, my fleaweight (pic here, and here with its earlier polycarbonate shell so you can see all the components) is a bit on the advanced side for a flea, it's more or less a full sized antweight drivetrain with two motors, speed controller, et cetera, packed into the smallest possible space.

It breaks down roughly as follows:

Reciever: Spektrum AR6110e (£37.20 from Micron*)
Speed controller: Peter Waller Option A (~£30 if I remember correctly from Mr. Waller himself)
Drive motors: 2 x 30:1 gearmotors (£13.59 each from Robot Bits)
Wheels: 2 x Scalextric Formula 1 wheels from eBay (~£3ish for 4 from eBay)
Battery pack: Hyperion 120mah LiPo pack (£7.90 from Micron - note this is an example as I use a few different packs)
Lead to connect battery pack to speed controller: JST connector pre-crimped to wire (£1 from Atomic Workshop and one morning's soldering)
Chassis: 1mm polycarbonate (about £3 for an A4 sheet from eBay), ~1.5mm polypropylene (~£1 for a VHS tape from your local charity shop, use the case for brackets and hinges while you are entertained during construction by Dynasty)
Armour: 0.5mm titanium (this varies a lot and can be hard to come by...allow about £20 for this and check eBay regularly)
Postage on all the items will probably add up to about ~£10

That makes a total of about £140.28, not counting a transmitter or LiPo battery charger which would push the cost towards £250, but that's towards the high end of the scale as I used more expensive components than I should have (due to stupidity) and in particular bought far more of the materials used in construction than I should have (due to incompetence). You might find it useful to order excess materials though so you can use the leftovers for other robots ^^

If you want a cheaper fleaweight though, and still have it be pretty good and competitive, you can go for a combination of parts a bit like this:

Transmitter and reciever: Planet 5 2.4ghz set (Cornwall Model Boats for prices - as an example, £41.94 for the transmitter and £13.99 for a 4 channel reciever (3.5 gram - the 2.6 gram one has odd connectors))
Drive motors: SuperTec Pico servos (£12.25 each from Micron, and then they need to be modified for 360 degree rotation and speed hacking - ask Jim about this as he knows a good trick with Picos and Lego pieces to make fitting wheels easy :))
Speed controller: Included in servos
Weapon servo: Anything you can fit in really ^^ but for example's sake, another Pico (£12.25)
Wheels: With the Lego pieces as Jim uses, either check Bricklink or check your Lego box :) (~£5 at most?)
Battery pack: 6v 120mah NiMh pack (£4.00 from Component Shop)
NiMh battery charger: You *might* get one with the transmitter, but failing that any standard Tx/Rx pack charger will do (£11.75 from Micron)
Armour/chassis material: 1mm polycarbonate (about £3 for an A4 sheet from eBay), or be creative with whatever you have to hand!
Postage: ~£10

This comes to £126.43 total but the above list includes everything you'd need to build a fleaweight apart from the bolts/sticky tape/hot glue needed to hold it together, and your imagination to make it all come to life :) You might well have a lot of the components lying around already if you have robots, which will reduce the price a lot, the totals I've listed involve buying everything new.

Hope all that helped somehow, feel free to ask questions/point out where I've gone wrong XD

(*which I have just noticed they've stopped selling, damn)
Joey McConnell-Farber - Team Picus Telerobotics - http://picus.org.uk/ - @joey_picus
"These dreams go on when I close my eyes...every second of the night, I live another life"
haz
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Re: Flea weights

Post by haz »

i would have gone with "the same as an antweight" :P
Pugster2002
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Re: Flea weights

Post by Pugster2002 »

I have no made a flea weight called speedy and it only cost £11
Pugster is 9 years old and is autistic,he can be blunt and sometimes seems rude,but he's just to the point!!!please try to be clear when talking to him.his obsession is robot wars and pugs!!thanks guys(pugsters mum!!)
haz
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Joined: Thu Apr 15, 2010 11:20 am
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Re: Flea weights

Post by haz »

rc cars dont really cut it as robots im afraid, but its good to see another flea.
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joey_picus
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Re: Flea weights

Post by joey_picus »

There is Spall, but we're stretching the definition of 'robot' there XD

For the uninitiated, Spall (here, being squeezed) was the result of me seeing a £5 infrared R/C car in B&M Bargains and sticking a bodyshell on it, so it could be destroyed and everyone have a good laugh at it. That was in September 2010, it is over a year and about ten events since and it is frustratingly still working...
Joey McConnell-Farber - Team Picus Telerobotics - http://picus.org.uk/ - @joey_picus
"These dreams go on when I close my eyes...every second of the night, I live another life"
Pugster2002
Posts: 143
Joined: Thu Dec 08, 2011 2:28 pm

Re: Flea weights

Post by Pugster2002 »

Speedy is a rc car exept it has to wheels and good controller plus 360 degree turn :D
Pugster is 9 years old and is autistic,he can be blunt and sometimes seems rude,but he's just to the point!!!please try to be clear when talking to him.his obsession is robot wars and pugs!!thanks guys(pugsters mum!!)
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