Hellcat

Built By: Andrew Kerrison

First Fight: 2005

Weapon: Pneumatic flipper

Drive: SSR gear boxes with HTI motors. IFI Victor 883 60A speed controllers

Details: 2nd attempt at a pneumatic flipper after Scarifier. 7bar pneumatic system supplied by 7oz paintball tank with Tipman low pressure regulator. All the fittings and valves are control system pneumatics from eBay while the red accumulator tank is a 1kg dry powder fire extinguisher. The extinguisher tank has a 1/4″ bsp fitting soldered to the side to supply the valve.

The drive motors, gearboxes and electronics where taken from Hellbringer with the addition of a servo switch and gyro. This was also my first robot to use LiPo batteries. Since the solenoid valve was rated for 24V and I was running a 11.1V lipo I added a 9V battery in series with the solenoid to give the required voltage.

The frame was welded mild steel RHS. I started by assembling the pneumatic system and built up the frame around it. This was not the best way to make a robot as it meant there was a lot of empty space inside the robot and too much area to armour. To keep the robot under the weight limit I could only use 3mm polycarbonate for armour.

For the first competition the pneumatic ram was attached to the end of the flipping arm and did not give enough throw. For the next I changed the attachment point further back to double the throw.

But for a pneumatics test robot it worked well.

After taking some damage in its second competition I decided to rebuild Hellcat to be better armoured and able to self right. To do this it was rebuilt as a forward hinged flipper.