killercarrot

The electronise speedos fit quite nicely, and there's plenty of room for the 4QD's if I choose to swap over. I've run it up at 12v and 24v, and it sounds a helluva lot better at 24v. The motors are cheap 12v jobbies, so overvolting them to 24v may get them warm. The other decision is what batteries to run them on. I have a couple of 12v NiCad packs i made about 3 years ago... but they are only around 1400mAh. I am tempted to buy a couple of 8.4v sub C 1900mAh battery packs from technobots, and see how it performs at about 16v. It's just a cse of how h=long the packs last really. There's enough room in there for 4 packs, so that would be 3800mAh. The big bot used to get by on 15Ah, so just 12kg shoukld be ok on 3Ah? We'll see. I've drilled the hubs, and just need to weld them up now.

Ok I went the easy route and trimmed down the plastic housings and araldited them to the cages. the motors mount up ok, and I've given each of them a test run and they all seem to run smoothly. The next step is to wire in the speed controllers. I have the electronise to hand for starters, as I only need to stick a couple of crimp fit connectors onto the wire to get things happening. Then I need to make the wheel hubs.. Might get some of it done this week, but I really am in no rush at all.

This is the new chassis for our next featherweight project. It's 50x25 2mm ERW . The lumps on the inside are the gearbox cages from 4 cordless drill motors, there's a copper bush through the chassis and the shaft is circlipped on the wheel side. If I can be bothered I'll gas weld some tiny nuts to the cages to mount the motors.. if not then I'll araldite the cut down plastic cases. I have 4x12v motors to run this, and it's a bit of a toss up whether I run them at 24v using a pair of NCC 35 24v's OR the simpler, but maybe less brutal electronise option. I like the idea of the electronise, as we could then run trhe whole thing at say 16v, whilst still keeping all the components inside the central box... all under 80mm high. However the ncc's would certainly make the wheels squeal better, and I have some 100mm wheel options that would make it caper about at an alarming rate. The whole idea of this build is to be as simple and robust as can be.. if a motor burns...

Here's a photo of K3, the undocumented and underappreciated replacement for Killercarrot2. The 25mmx3mm box chassis was designed around a 100x125 16bar ram, T type axles, a pair of CIM2 motors balanced at 36v, and Pro 120 speed controllers. The regulator was a very nice Kenmac high flow unit, and all the plumbing was custom built in the Hydraquip workshops at Crawley. The body is armoured at the front by heat treated steel, and the end of the flipper plate is cut from a laminated steel plough body.

Well, looks like Simon didn't want to paint over the carrot on K3's flipper arm, so we may have a new Northern outpost for Team Dangerous Vegetables and the Killercarrot Crew. Simon will be running K3 with the T type axles powered by a pair of Littons at 24v from the standard Hawker SBS 15's and Curtis speedies. There's a new 160x100 10 bar ram to fill the hole left when I broke the 16 bar jobbie.. should make a nice little run around. I reckon it'll need a gyro as the 16" wheels made it a bit flighty when I ran it, but that could be my poor driving skills.

Well it's been about 2 years since I updated the killer carrot website, and whilst I did try to run a blog from it, it never quite worked. I've just sold the chassis of K3 to Simon of team Mongrel, so the decks are clear to revitalise old KC2, and get it ready for a bit of a laugh in 2006. I've also made a start of a new featherwight chassis, a rammer, 4 drill motors, with the gear cages welded direct to the chassis.