Servo - December 2014

24 SERVO 12.2014

locked together during assembly. After a bit of sanding to get the fit just right, the whole chassis was completed.

The next step in the build was to gut the old Nyx and transplant the electrical system into the new frame so the drive system could be tested. All of the fasteners and zip ties were removed from the old body and given a quick check to make sure there was no obvious damage. With the damage check completed, the drive motors and power switch were bolted to the chassis.

At this point, the first issue of the build appeared. With all of the parts installed and the battery hooked up, After testing various components, it was determined that something on the motor controller had failed. This wasn’t a big surprise as the controller has been in use for several years and has taken a substantial amount of abuse. A new Ragebridge ESC from

E0Designs.com was swapped in. Not long after that, the bot was driving around and working properly.

The platform build wasn’t quite done yet. The final stage of the build required the final location of the battery housing to be set, the weapon motor controller to be installed, and both motor controllers to be firmly attached to the chassis. The same foam battery housing from Nyx was used as it has proven to be a very forgiving mounting solution.

A second Ragebridge was installed and wired into the power system for the weapon systems, and both motor controllers were attached to the baseplate with large Velcro™ patches. With everything in the robot, several wire ties were added to keep the wires that would not be regularly interacted out of the way and routed moderately neatly.

Part 3 will cover the fabrication and assembly of the weapon modules, and will include a link where you’ll be able to download the complete 3D CAD files, as well as the fabrication drawings used to waterjet cut the chassis components for Nyx. SV