project: nanner

More archival material...
This little guy is going to be in the "work in progress" status for a while. It will take several months until I figure out where to take the design. My first goal was to fabricate a class 1 bot chassis (under 4cm), but ended up with smaller parts and got it down to 2.5cm which would make this the smallest scale I've ever constructed, and from scratch nonetheless.



So far the chassis measures 2.5cm all around and weighs only 3.5 grams (0.1oz), well within the Class 1 spec. The lack of weight is partly due to the extra-lightweight properties of the particular hobby aluminum I used for the main pillar and side supports. As you can see I haven't soldered the center pillar in place yet- more on that later. The main ring was bashed from an old Hitachi VCR's helical recording head and is extremely lightweight. I find these VCR parts to be very useful so keep an eye out for them in the wild. Crack them open and look for the big, shiny chrome cylinder and unscrew it into its components.



The two motors I selected crank out 23,500 RPM and measure 12mm. These are hi-performance ZipZaps upgrade motors you can buy at any Radio Shack (#60-7521) just make sure you buy two of them so you get paired motors. I mounted them at a 20 degree camber from the support posts and gave them a forward angle to keep the chassis somewhat level when it will finally run. Right now it rests on the two motor shafts and the center ring rather neatly but any momentum will send it flying backwards on the main ring, I'll probably end up adding a rear skid to counter that. The two rear screws on the side supports act as adjusters for the each of the motor beams, so if I need to spread out the bot's stance I can do so by turning the screws slightly.



The unsoldered center pillar is being used as a placeholder at the moment. It will be removed and the center ring will house a simple photovoric sensor, or perhaps something more complex if I can squeeze it in. That will be the fun part of this project. I'll probably end up using a small rechargeable NiCd for power. More pics soon.