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Nightmare - BattleBots
Season 1.0, San Francisco, CA
Nightmare was prepared to show off a pretty major upgrade for this event, but ended up not getting the chance at all. With the help of Todd Mendenhall and SORC, I was very pleased at the finished upgrades.
First up was the weapon motor upgrade. I replaced the old 12V 3hp series-wound motor (on the right) with a 24V 10hp one (left). One MASSIVE motor! Todd helped out big time by machining several pounds of unwanted material off this military surplus motor, rounding the shaft and fitting on a new sprocket, as well as wiring up the new wires! This was a HUGE help, and I owe a lot of gratitude to Todd and SORC!
New motor means new motor mount, one that would help eliminate the mount-shifting or breaking issues I've had with Nightmare in previous events, and once again, Todd at SORC chipped in big time.
This heavy duty motor mount was made in SORC's machine shop, it was exactly what I wanted and was practically bolt-in-and-go.
Once again, Thanks Todd!
The last thing that Todd Mendenhall at SORC did for Nightmare was to find me this excellent sprocket for the disc, a larger diameter one than I was able to find previously, giving me increased torque to go with the new motor's increased speed. He lightened the sprocket up for me by machining out some nice holes. The whole new upgrade components (motor, mount, sprocket, etc.) only added 4.5 pounds to Nightmare's previous weight.
That extra 4.5 pounds was about 4.5 pounds too much though, since Nightmare was already at his 210 pound maximum, so I had to start working on ways to take off that same weight elsewhere. So, I painstakingly stripped him down to his frame, setting aside all the components, and got the frame up on my nice new milling machine to mill out some pockets and holes in the thick aluminum armor.
I milled out six rectangular and triangular pockets on the outside rear of the frame on both sides (left them silver cuz it looked cool) and took even more out from the interior frame in the back, and some in the front. Basically if it was too thick or not necessary, I cut it off, milled or ground it down.
If you're wondering what the blue stuff is, it is a spray-on rubber compound paint that adds a nice thick and spongy non-conductive surface all over the electronics area of Nightmare. I don't want to run the risk of loose wires ever contacting metal, so this stuff does the job, in addition to adding a little bit of shock protection.
Since I had everything pulled out anyway, I took the opportunity to upgrade some of Nightmare's electronics as well. I added in two new Hawker Odyssey batteries (PC545), red this time, I guess they stopped making the black ones... and an all new bigger 24V solenoid, new wiring, relays and switches, and cleaned everythig up nice and neat. It's MUCH easier to work in there now! I feel less wire means less of a potential for electrical failure during a match.
When all was said and done and got Nightmare back on the scale, I had ended up being able to get exactly 4.5 pounds milled, grinded, drilled or cut off of Nightmare to get him back down to his max weight total of 210 pounds! Whew!
THANKS to my pit crew team (not pictured) from San Francisco BattleBots 2000:
Beau Cox, Doug Evans, Chris Hurd and Carl Swanson!And once again, a BIG thanks to Todd Mendenhall of SORC for his help with Nightmare's upgrades for this event!
