Notably missing was any attempt to improve invertability. The original Solaris was pretty vulnerable upside down. Derek Zahn had come up with one way to solve this problem by using a more complex drive system, incorporating 3 wheels per side. Greg Dabkowski solved this problem by using a large front wheel. While both systems work well, I felt that borrowing either idea would make my bot look too much like theirs. Plus, both methods take up weight that I'd rather use elsewhere. I'd stick with the Cosmos credo of sacrificing inverted drivability for right-side-up nastiness. As long as I could move while inverted, I'd be satisfied. Although I've lost a fair number of matches due to invertability issues, I've also really enjoyed the fights where I got inverted, was losing the match, then got right-side-up again to kick some ass in the final minute. It adds a bit of drama.

The design phase took much longer then I expected. The original Solaris kept doing well, without taking that much damage. It was hard to start on a new bot when you have one in great working order that is still performing well. The original bot also evolved over time, allowing me to try new ideas without re-building the entire bot. Solaris 1 became a test bed for ideas I wanted to use in the new Solaris. This helped weed out a few of the ideas that didn't work so well, and resulted in a better final design of Solaris 2. If you build a new bot each time you want to try out new ideas, you're going to quickly get tired of building.

Between Solaris and Helios, Ted and I had been trying to come up with ideas on making the drums last longer. Making a drum can take a few days of effort, and we eventually got to the point where we were going through a drum per competition. The main issue was the ends of the teeth breaking off. Since the retaining screws on these were tapped into aluminum instead of steel, they tended to strip. Also, the groove in the drum tended to smear the most on the ends. Both of these factors led to teeth breaking off at the ends.

With Helios we tried two different methods to improve the drum: The Uber-Nut (tm) and the end ribs. The uber-nut experiment was a keeper, it kept the teeth attached to the drum well, and aided in swapping ruined teeth out. The rib idea was effective, but required much more work and thicker drum material. It also made the end of the teeth less effective, since the rib effectively hid that part of the tooth.

We tried this design out on the original Solaris, and eventually Helios. The results were mixed. We put a lot of nice holes in other bots, but at the same time we broke a lot of blades. It also complicated the making of the drum body and end-caps considerably, a task we were already tired of.

By the time I got to actually building the drum on Solaris 2, I had a slightly different design in mind. Instead of circular blades, I used rectangular blades that attached to the inside of the end cap, rather than the outside. This simplified the end caps significantly, and in theory made the drum body simpler to make as well. Since the blades were rectangular in nature I could cut the blades on my mill, use less material, and save some money. I also hoped that they'd be more resilient to breakage then the originals, but I wouldn't know until I tried them out.

Also, I decided to make the drum radically larger in diameter. I chose 5" from end-of-blade to end-of-blade, which is just a bit smaller then Helios's drum. I hoped putting something this ridiculously large in a 12 pounder would help Solaris stand out from the rest of the nasty hobbyweights. Of course, I also hoped that the larger drum would allow me to really dish out the hits.

I'd had a chance to experiment with titanium armor on the first Solaris. Since I was using corner blocks originally, it was fairly simple to bolt on some titanium rather then the 3/16" aluminum I had originally used. While this worked well, there were a couple of issues. The bronze sleeve bearings I used for the axles were difficult to attach to the thin titanium. Also the .08" Ti seemed a bit too flexible for my tastes.

I needed to solve these issues, and I also wanted to try to slope all four sides of the bot. The hope here was that this would make other vertical spinners a lot less effective against me. I thought that this would result in many more glancing blows, rather then blows that might grab me and flip me. This design feature proved very difficult to design and implement. It was very tempting to drop it at several points, but I hoped that the effort would pay off.

Gear reduction was an issue. Ted had found some top secret 29:1 reduction planetary gearboxes. They were meant for relatively small motors, and didn't have a lot of fight time under their belt. I recalled reading about a gearbox mod Eric Scott had done using a Harbor Freight drill. I decided to try something similar using a Handiworks gearbox and a torquier motor. I built a dummy mount, to test out the idea, and it seemed to work well.

The other advantage of modifying the handiwork gearbox was that it made the drive system considerably smaller, and I saved a bit of weight as well. On the other hand, it introduced a lot of uncertainty, since we hadn't done this before, and it relied pretty heavily on accurately machined parts. I decided that the advantages outweighed the risks.

Borrowing one of Ted's design ideas from Helios, I also decided to drive both sets of wheels indirectly. If needed, I could use this to further increase the reduction used in the drive system. This also allowed me to use the dead axle idea mentioned above. The down side of this method is that it requires more pulleys and more belts, adding weight and complexity.

I decided to use stronger aluminum, and to use much less polycarb in the rebuild. The frame used a lot of 3/8" 2024, and 1/4" 7075. Almost all of it was hack-sawed out of plate, and milled to the right size.

I was really happy with the final design of the frame. Everything was mounted well, and in appropriate places. With the drive motors placed centrally in the bot, I was able to put the custom made Battlepacks in the very rear of the bot, hopefully helping the weight distribution and improving invertability. I realized that 9 3300 mAh NimH cells could be configured to give me a good 45 degree angle, which fit well into the angled design of the rear.

I once again used carbon fiber for the top and base plate. I borrowed one of Greg Dabkowski's ideas, and had a template water-jetted from some thin aluminum, so I could easily drill the holes in the proper place. I made sure that the top and base plates had the same hole pattern, so I could use the same template for both.

Invertability was accomplished by adding a few standoffs, similar to my final design on the original Solaris. These had to be significantly taller, since the drum was so much larger. I improved upon the design of the originals, knowing a bit more about how to make things strong.

I switched from a Anderson-based removable link to a Whyachi MS05 switch. The old Anderson powerpole link had caused probably 5 losses between Ted and I in the past. I felt a lot safer about not loosing power during a fight. However, I feel that these switches are overpriced, especially considering the additional $10 shipping charge. I imagine this will keep a lot of sub-light bots away from the switches.

I stuck with a brushless motor to power the weapon, and switched to a Castle Creations Phoenix 45 brushless ESC. This ESC is tiny compared to other similar controllers, had a good English manual, and worked great. I'd say it was my first positive experience with a brushless controller.

Ted and I are lucky enough to know the guys over at Banebots. We've been beta testing their brushed ESCs in bots for quite a while now. I would have been hard pressed to find a commercially available ESC that would have fit in the tiny amount of space that I had available. When these things come to market they're going to sell like mad. More features, more current, and a smaller footprint are hard to argue with. Thanks Rick!

Postmortem

What Went Wrong

Custom wheels
The wheels I made were nice, but suffered from a few problems. They were much too heavy. Also, the polyurethane refused to stay on the wheels, causing the tread to bunch up which caused a few small driving issues. I switched the two rear wheels to some cheap-o Colson knockoffs at the last minute and saved 2 oz per wheel.

Original gearbox design
The Wattages are probably the wrong motor to mate with the Handiworks gearboxes. I had problems keeping the pinions on, although I believe that problem could be easily solved. The bigger issue is that the Wattages draw an insane amount of current to start spinning. You can see momentary spikes of 50 amps or more. The beta ESCs I was using could not handle that, and would shutdown in order to protect itself. I eventually swapped out to the "Long Can" speed 400s, and have had great luck with them. In theory I gave up some torque and speed, but I believe the reliability is probably much greater.

Drivability
Given the amazing gyro forces of the weapon, driving proved to be difficult. The bot likes to stand up on end when turning, which can be pretty unnerving. It may also make it easier for the opponent to flip me over. I thought I'd have the discipline to throttle back on the weapon so I could do a good job of driving, but found that the bloodlust was so strong that I almost always ran the weapon full throttle. Driving be damned!

What Went Right

New Frame
Over the 6 month design phase, I iterated over the frame probably 10 times. I was very happy with how it end up in terms of layout, aesthetics, and strength. It gives this iteration of Solaris it's own style, while solving several difficult problems.

Completeness of design
Unlike the original Solaris, I made sure I had each piece completely designed before I started making it. This resulted in more accurate pieces, since I had to re-position them fewer times in the mill. This also sped up the building process (at the cost of more design time) since I could build straight through without having to run upstairs to design the next part.

Machining
When I made the original Solaris, it was the first bot I had made on my mill. I made an alarming number of errors, some of which were fairly serious. I had a lot of practice on the mill by the time I started on the new Solaris, and things went much more smoothly. This was a good thing, since I was under the gun time-wise for most of the project. It's amazing what a little practice will do.