As I’m trying to put this robot together as soon as possible using what I have, dug through my collection of parts and found this 16:1 planetary gearboxes and 4238-750kv brushless motors.

I’m going to try out a new idea with the drive, I’m mounting the motors and ESC’s into a pivoting pod. The pod will have the full weight of the robot chassis spread across the wheel base and the pivot will allow the wheels to follow any undulation without removing traction from the wheels.

With a quick 3DP mock up, I worked out the exact dimensions needed of the pod and started to make them from metal.

Four plates cut, ready to be filled to size. This will make two drives pods, one for the bot and one spare.

Each plate gets the gearbox holes drilled and countersunk.

The first drive pod assembled.

Trying to mock up the placement to begin aligning and making the pivot structure for the drives.

A little more tweaking of position and testing needs to be done, but this looks like a starting point.

Plenty of space still for the weapon assembly, battery and wiring.

Till next time…