PHRIZBEE
This is Phrizbee, our heavyweight spinner designed for Battlebots. Phrizbee is 28 inches in diameter and 7 inches from the ground to the top of the shell and weighs less than 211 pounds (but not much less!). The drive train is only 4 1/2 inches thick. The cold rolled steel shell and hardened steel shark's teeth weigh over 65 pounds and spin at over 1200 RPM.
Scroll below to learn more about Phrizbee and follow our progress. (35MB file... You better have Broad Band!)
|
 |
Electrical Rack of parts: 15 EV warrior motors, 4 Bosch GPA 750 motors, 10 wiper gear motors, four 4QD drives, 2 Vantec drives, 2 Innovation First 883 drives |
 |
This is where it all began... 48" X 48" piece of 1/4" 6061 T6 aluminum |
 |
Bin of Pieces: Phrizbee is constructed in a uni-body fashion. The frame is the body which is the drive line support. Each piece is slotted into the adjoining pieces to give it rigidity even before it is welded in the final assembly |
 |
I designed these bearing holders (pillow blocks) to get their strength from engineering rather than mass. There are no shear points in line and the bearing will have to displace the bearing seat, flange and the plate that it is mounted to in order to move. These are all CNCed out of 6061 T6 aluminum |
 |
|
 |
This is the cross section of the pillow block. You can see that the bearing is actually inside the support plate. The only thing sticking out is the mounting flange. The plate is 1/4" thick and the flange is about 3/16" thick, for a total thickness of less than 1/2". |
 |
These are the drive shafts and intermediate shafts for the drive train. All the shafts in Phrizbee are keyed for ease in assembly of the sprockets and custom wheel hubs. |
 |
Here are our nice solid rubber, aluminum hub wheels from an Amigo scooter. 6 inches in diameter and over 2 inches wide. Nice soft solid rubber. The custom hubs that fit inside the stock hubs are keyed to the drive shaft and 'dutched' to the wheel hub. |
 |
You can see the layout of the drive line. Primary, secondary, and final sprockets and drive wheel are all installed on the right side of this picture. No room for error in measurement here. |
 |
The electronics platform... the only thing not mounted here is the heading hold gyro. |
 |
These are our continuous duty 24VDC solenoids. One for the main drive and one for the spinner motors. Wired up with nice heavy 4 AWG wire. |
 |
Helicopter Gyros are ESSENTIAL for ALL bots especially spinners. These are the latest model from Telebee. |
 |
The motor mounts for the EV motors. Mounts to our uni-body and the motor straps in. |
 |
|
 |
Here is where the spinner motors will sit... nice and low in the uni-body. A secondary shaft completes the connection to the center spindle. |
 |
A view from below. Just enough ground clearance and no unsightly holes |
 |
Here Phrizbee is with the drive train all wired up and running. A nice Vantec RDFR38E controls the juice. Phrizbee is INCREDIBLY fast, stable, and maneuverable. |
 |
Phrizbee lays rubber with all four wheels when he takes off, and spins on a dime, FAST. Here is a picture of my driveway after a few minutes of test running. |
 |
Now since the drive train was running so well it was time to tear it all down to the frame again for the permanent welding. Every seam is welded solid. |
 |
|
 |
Here is our solid cold rolled steel shell. 1/4" thick for most of it and 3/4" for the bottom inch. |
 |
The shell fits nicely over the drive platform. |
 |
On motor-tear-apart-day we installed longer mounting bolts to the GPA 750 motors.
|
 |
Installed Capacitors and Varistors to the various motor brushes. |
 |
Saw that there was no assurance that the magnets would not compress the clamps during a hard hit.
|
 |
So we glued in the magnets. |
 |
Here is the shell with the top plate welded on... lesson learned: When you weld metal that is 'in a bind' or fitted VERY tightly it WILL warp! Luckily Ken has warped enough things in his welding career to know how to un-warp things too! |
 |
We cut 18 holes in the shell and traded the weight for shark's teeth that were welded over them |
 |
We decided to go for 1000 little hits instead of one BIG hit when we contact the opponent (learning a lesson from Ziggo and Mauler... which technique is more successful?). These hardened steel teeth have the sharpened edge down and a slightly upward rake to them to help impart an upward vector to the opponent and a downward vector to Phrizbee at impact.
|
 |
Here is Phrizbee all assembled, battle ready, with his Lexan top and all support bearings in place... next step: performance tests, the FUN stuff! |
