Reccomendations on Tracked Robot

Britannicus

I'm playing with some home built robots in the UK. I'd like to try a tracked solution but I'm struggling to find something appropriate -

I can either buy very lightwieght plastic flimsy- lookin gsolutions for around £10 or the next step up in pricing seems to be a leap up to around £100.

Anyone know of some good robust options for a bot aroung the 5KG sort of level for less than £50 that I can get from the UK ??

Duane Degn

Britannicus,

I had the same problem. When I tried to find some good treads, the best option I found were the ones made by Lynxmotion. I was (and still am) very tempted to purchase their Tri-Track Chassis Kit. But $221 was/is just too much. This kit uses their two inch track which they also sell separately. They also sell three inch track.

Lego sells sets with a variety of treads. I've wondered about using tread from one of their sets in a robot. I've actually purchased several sets with promising tread. I haven't tried adapting them yet.

There are also other treaded toys that might lend themselfs to hacking. I thought this one looked interesting. Have seen these at robotshop.com?

I'm not sure what the current exchange rate is but I'd bet $19,995.00 for a Zomby is out of your price range.

There is something cool about treaded vehicles.

Good luck in your search.

Duane

Duane Degn

erco posted a link to a couple of treaded robots. They might be good candidates for hacking.

erco

Check your local toy stores and hobby shops for treaded R/C vehicles.

Humanoido

Out of interest, at the larger end of the scale you could use a scale model of the Abrams Tank purchased from Amazon.com. They come in various sizes so shop around.

http://www.amazon.com/Brands-on-Sale-Inc-Abrams/dp/B0007D5BLI

Or go home built with large treaded Sherman Tank which could be scaled down.

http://www.gizmology.net/tanks.htm

Martin_H

I have a Propeller Platform board which I'm looking to use in a robot. While I could swap out my existing BS2e board in the CBA, I would need to swap back when I want to run programs I've already written, or any BS2 samples I come across. That seems like a pain, so I figure building a new robot would be a better course of action.

While I'm always tempted to build a bigger bot, I'm more likely to finish and use a smaller one. For some reason I am really itching to make a tankbot. I've always heard that they're lousy with encoder precision, but they look really cool. The question of course would be which kit to use as a base. Here are a few ideas:

* The light weight Tamiya tread kit, dual motor gearbox, and plate kit. Perhaps a bit too small and under powered.

* The Boe Bot chassis and tread kit coupled with some servos.

* The Pololu's RP5 which looks good and only slightly more costly. While it would require a motor controller and add one encoders, look at the cool robot someone built with it: http://forums.parallax.com/showthread.php?119220-BS2-based-Robot&highlight=RP5+chassis

* There's the enticing TankBot XL from E-Clec-Tech's http://ep.yimg.com/ca/I/e-clec-tech_2126_26315391. It uses servo's which appeals to me because they're easy to control with the propeller board I have.

* There's some tread kits from RobotShop which use plastic links, aluminum frames, and the Solarbotics motors. But these would also require a motor controller.

Britannicus

There's some interesting food for thought - I'm currently building 2 bot (slowly side by side) - On is a 4 wheel drive skid steer cannibalised from 2 of my son's broken remote controled cars, which I use as a platform for testing sensing solutions for a Hexapod which I'm building from first principles. Mechanically I'm finding this a real challenge (mostly due to lack of the right tooling), but that's why we do it isn't it?. The idea of a tank bot does appeal - I particularly liked the look of the E-Clec-Tech - I'll have to check this out if I can get this in the UK

Duane Degn

I thought I'd add this question to this thread instead of starting a new one.

I just saw this picture at Gordon McComb's website.



Do any of you know where to purchase these treads? Gordon are you reading this?

I might need to buy Robot Builders Bonanza (which I plan to do any way) to find out. I couldn't find them for sale at BudgetRobotics.com.

Why are treads so cool?

I remember being mesmerized by the tracks on the bulldozers at the city dump.

Duane

GordonMcComb

This is a robot I used to sell on Budget Robotics. I got the treads from a discontinued imported toy. Lots of wholesalers stopped carrying Chinese-made toys like this because of the lead-in-the-paint problem. I bought the tanks by the caseload, but over time sold them all out.

I use the picture as a cool robot example, demonstrating an "invertible" tank. RBB4 doesn't have this project, but the idea is fairly straight-forward. I still have the CAD files if anyone is interested in reconstructing it, though the dimensions are dependent on the length of the treads.

To answer the OP (yeah, I know the thread is old) for sturdy treads there's always Johnny Robot.

http://www.robotshop.com/Johnny-Robot.html

You can make the treads any length, and you can double-up the treads for extra thickness. A little pricey, though, as all of these are.

I've looked at, but never tried, the plastic and rubber treads that Lynxmotion sells.

My hope is that Parallax makes something to fill this niche.

-- Gordon

PS: The TankBot XL that's on (or used to be on) E-Clec-Tech's site is also a former Budget Robotics bot. Smaller base, different tank toy and different treads, same problem of the toys now being harder to find on the wholesale market because of product liability issues.

Bill Henning

I am quite satisfied with Rover 5 tracked chassis, available from SparkFun.