One of the hardest parts of any project is finding just where to get the pieces you need. Americans have it easy thanks to McMaster Carr, which, if you're lucky, will offer same day delivery (looking at you Charles <.<) or Amazon Industrial. None of those ship to Canada....except to existing customers in the case of McMaster.
So, how do Canadians get supplies to make...well, anything? It depends what you need, and how quickly you need it.
Most of the sources are included in the materials sources on my side-bar, but I thought it would be a good idea to make an actual post about it. I'm not paid to write about any of this. If you have other sources, feel free to leave them in the comments!
I'm in no Hurry and I don't REALLY care about quality
Ebay and various direct-from-china websites have everything you need, including a jet engine or two, probably. Thing is, you're pretty much guaranteed to wait at least a month for it (even if the ebay estimated delivery says in 2 weeks, it lies), and then 1 or 2 out of every 3 items might not work, or work a very short time, or get to you broken. I used to also buy from Aliexpress, but they don't accept paypal anymore... and i'm not ready to give my creditcard number to china just yet.
I want quality stuff/I need it in less than a month
If you want electronic parts, the regular American sites do ship to canada. Sparkfun, Adafruit, and Pololu are all very good sources...Adafruit and Pololu in particular since they have tutorials. Not only that, but the usual, more engineering-oriented sites work too. Digikey has a canadian website (Digikey.ca), and element 14/Newark ships to canada.
For electronics, Canada has a few shops of it's own too. Robotshop and SpikenzieLabs, for instance, are both based in the Montreal area.
If you need anything related to RC, motors, batteries, and such, Hobbyking's where you'll want to go. Their parts have been used in everything, from silly go karts, to Battlebots, to powering, and then blowing up with, MIT's rocket (not the batteries fault. after 4 tries you'd think they'd find out how to do a proper recovery...) I know some people wouldn't consider Hobbyking to be quality, but it's really the middle ground between very expensive quality and cheap piece of crap.
If you want mechanical parts...well, good luck. Misumi USA does ship to canada (along with being VERY expensive. 67$ for a 250mm long 8mm leadscrew with 2 starts? i'll buy 4 from china and hope one is actually straight and made of metal, and only pay 30$ TYVM) and when you really need it it's there. Surplus Center ships to canada, and also kind of have a Canadian equivalent called Princess Auto. Fastenal is there for all your fasteners needs and is getting more and more products trying to compete for the hole McMaster left in the canadian sources, as is Ackland-Grainger.
Also, amazon.ca has some stuff.
I don't need no electronics or tools, I need raw materials!
Getting raw materials in canada is so hard, unless you're a company, or willing to pay (and have the space to store) 1000$ worth of steel or aluminium at once, no metal selling companies will want to talk to you. Some machine shops do sell in small quantity, but in my experience they tend to see you as a nuisance more than anything else.
Enter Online Metals. Want 0.5" titanium plate? You got it! Need C385 brass flat bars? got that too! Tool Steel? of course! 1100 Aluminium? Unless you want to make something out of actual Inconel, they'll have everything you need. While they have aluminium, I wouldn't recommend using them for aluminium. Instead, go to Aircraft Spruce. Because they are canadian, they don't have the antidumping tax american companies (like online metals) might get hit with. They are also a good source of carbon fiber, glass fiber, and epoxy. Both also sell plastics.
If you don't need wide sheets of metal, Sidecuts might be a cheap source too.
I want cosplay/Artsy stuff
Canada has a good source of cosplay supplies, although I can only really mention the ones I've used.
Sculpture Supplies is my source of Smooth-On products, but they have everything related to sculpture; tools, materials, Worbla. But finding something on their website can be hard sometimes if you don't know the exact name of the product you're looking for.
If you want EVA foam, there's only one place that sells REALLY great EVA foam. TNT cosplay! (they also have Rytlock Brimstone on their main page, so why WOULDN'T you want to buy from them?)
I want...information
Then go look at websites! Try finding blogs or youtubers that happens to do something related to what you want to do.
Charles Guan
Bill Doran
Kamui Cosplay
Evil Ted Smith
Jimmy Diresta
Clickspring
Dan Gelbart
Matthias Wandel
Showing posts with label Robot combat. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Robot combat. Show all posts
Sunday, August 7, 2016
Thursday, February 11, 2016
Robot fighting document translation
One of the things that annoyed me when I was working as a FIRST team manager was how, whenever I mentionned robots and competition together, people would always, ALWAYS, say "Oh, you mean robot fighting, like Robot Wars?" (Except they're saying it in french). Now, unlike the USA, and Saskatoon, we don't have fancy pansy robot fighting league, motorama, or Dragon-con.
Even though, if you talk to pretty much anyone, they'll remember robot wars, or say how cool robot fighting is...well, everyone except for university deans who say it's too violent and is contrary the school values, when in reality, beside the battles themselves...it's really just like FIRST, with teams helping each others, knowledge sharing, community building, etc. Some actual engineering competition are way more toxic.
I find that really sad, how a sport that EVERYONE think is cool, literally doesn't exist in my province. Now, since everyone seem to like it, maybe all it needs is a little push. In order to give that little push, I reached out to SPARC and asked them if I could translate all their documents in french. You have to remember, many people in this province speak only french, and, while they might be comfortable enough with English to browse Amazon, reading pages and pages of rules, standards, and specification is asking a bit too much.
So, I added a new page, on this blog, in french only, where the french translation of these documents will live. Here's the link, but it should also be in the top-bar. The first one, "Règles des matchs" should be coming by the end of February.
I will do my best to spread those document to makerspaces in the province, and hopefully this seed will sprout into a competition or two. Now, I cannot guarantee I will be able to continue translating these documents as new revisions come out, but I will try. I doubt there will be huge revisions anyway.
I've had intermittent failures on my receiver. So I decided to open it to see if the last crash it had broke something internally.
It is quite well made for dissection. There are no clips holding it. It's only 2 screws (nothing hidden!) and 2 tabs on the other side, so it's built a bit like the battery-cover on the back of your calculator!
Gotta admire the simplicity of the thing. what I thought would be right-angled pins, are actually straight pins on an angled PCB. The only thing holding the PCB there is the solder...which is fine, since in that enclosure, the only force the thing will ever see is straight pulling force.
Now, I don't have a microscope...so I can't actually tell you what any of those pieces are. especially not those tiny resistors...or caps?...or whatever is in these...0201...01005? I don't know, at this size, i'd rather replace the whole thing than having to try even PLACE those things.
Anyway, turns out my problem was in mechanical interference. The case doesn't have proper tolerances, so in some places, the connectors push on the case, and then push on every other connectors subsequently placed...so if you remove one later, it also pulls on the second, making for a shoddy connection. I could have found that out without opening it...but then, curiosity got the best of me.
Dremel and Bandsaw time! Which it is ALL the time for prop-makers.
Dremel is love, Dremel is life...And I ended up with something like 6 inches of sawdust on my shirt (exagerating of course) Remember to wear a facemask/respirator when sanding that much off wood.
And how it looks from the same-ish angle as the anime. I still need the work on the handle, and then cast this piece to have an identical copy on each side. Sadly, because I hand sanded my piece, I have some overhangs in some place, so i'll need to use silicone resin, instead of cheaper plaster, to make a mold and cast the piece in urethane. Because
And compared to my source:
The handle is WAY shorter...because it's not a 4-handed sword!
One of my plans this year was to make a gun prop. Recently, japan outdone themselves (as usual) and released a copy of the Dominator from Psycho Pass. If you haven't seen it, it's worth every second of this video:
AFDWHAFWCDQRWDX WANT! HOW MUCH IS IT? 86 thousand yen? WTF?...welp...
Guess what prop i'm gonna try to make? ;P I don't tink it's going to only take this year to make though, but then, it might end up being a collaboration!
As some of you may remember, one of my goals this year was practicing Ocarina at every few days, sometimes with sheet music. Well, finding free (because poor student) sheet music for Ocarina is hard! Some websites, like STL Ocarina's forum and Songbird Ocarina have Tabs (fingering charts pretty much) but no sheet music. Even if I wanted to pay for it, the quantity of work made for Ocarina is...lacking.
As such, i'm going to take some of those tabs and translate them to sheet music. I'm going to put some of them (depending on their copyright licences and terms of use) right here.
So far i've been able to play bad apple without mistakes...at the correct speed...with only one or two slowdowns where I keep forgetting how to move my fingers.
Even though, if you talk to pretty much anyone, they'll remember robot wars, or say how cool robot fighting is...well, everyone except for university deans who say it's too violent and is contrary the school values, when in reality, beside the battles themselves...it's really just like FIRST, with teams helping each others, knowledge sharing, community building, etc. Some actual engineering competition are way more toxic.
I find that really sad, how a sport that EVERYONE think is cool, literally doesn't exist in my province. Now, since everyone seem to like it, maybe all it needs is a little push. In order to give that little push, I reached out to SPARC and asked them if I could translate all their documents in french. You have to remember, many people in this province speak only french, and, while they might be comfortable enough with English to browse Amazon, reading pages and pages of rules, standards, and specification is asking a bit too much.
So, I added a new page, on this blog, in french only, where the french translation of these documents will live. Here's the link, but it should also be in the top-bar. The first one, "Règles des matchs" should be coming by the end of February.
I will do my best to spread those document to makerspaces in the province, and hopefully this seed will sprout into a competition or two. Now, I cannot guarantee I will be able to continue translating these documents as new revisions come out, but I will try. I doubt there will be huge revisions anyway.
Turnigy Receiver Tear-Down:
I've had intermittent failures on my receiver. So I decided to open it to see if the last crash it had broke something internally.
It is quite well made for dissection. There are no clips holding it. It's only 2 screws (nothing hidden!) and 2 tabs on the other side, so it's built a bit like the battery-cover on the back of your calculator!
Gotta admire the simplicity of the thing. what I thought would be right-angled pins, are actually straight pins on an angled PCB. The only thing holding the PCB there is the solder...which is fine, since in that enclosure, the only force the thing will ever see is straight pulling force.
Now, I don't have a microscope...so I can't actually tell you what any of those pieces are. especially not those tiny resistors...or caps?...or whatever is in these...0201...01005? I don't know, at this size, i'd rather replace the whole thing than having to try even PLACE those things.
Anyway, turns out my problem was in mechanical interference. The case doesn't have proper tolerances, so in some places, the connectors push on the case, and then push on every other connectors subsequently placed...so if you remove one later, it also pulls on the second, making for a shoddy connection. I could have found that out without opening it...but then, curiosity got the best of me.
Dark Repulsor
I did the plans for it before, but I need to make this cosmetic piece at some point. One method I wouldn't live without anymore is making the plan for whatever piece i'm making on Inventor, and then sticking it on the stock i'm about to cut. For complex pieces like this, it's WAY faster than taking a pair of calipers and scribing cutting marks, and for simpler pieces, it is often simpler and faster to do it anyway because chances are you've already made a plan anyway...unless you want to just cut a rectangle, then it is simpler to cut to length and not stick
Dremel and Bandsaw time! Which it is ALL the time for prop-makers.
Dremel is love, Dremel is life...And I ended up with something like 6 inches of sawdust on my shirt (exagerating of course) Remember to wear a facemask/respirator when sanding that much off wood.
And how it looks from the same-ish angle as the anime. I still need the work on the handle, and then cast this piece to have an identical copy on each side. Sadly, because I hand sanded my piece, I have some overhangs in some place, so i'll need to use silicone resin, instead of cheaper plaster, to make a mold and cast the piece in urethane. Because
And compared to my source:
The handle is WAY shorter...because it's not a 4-handed sword!
Space Gun:
One of my plans this year was to make a gun prop. Recently, japan outdone themselves (as usual) and released a copy of the Dominator from Psycho Pass. If you haven't seen it, it's worth every second of this video:
AFDWHAFWCDQRWDX WANT! HOW MUCH IS IT? 86 thousand yen? WTF?...welp...
Guess what prop i'm gonna try to make? ;P I don't tink it's going to only take this year to make though, but then, it might end up being a collaboration!
Ocarina:
As some of you may remember, one of my goals this year was practicing Ocarina at every few days, sometimes with sheet music. Well, finding free (because poor student) sheet music for Ocarina is hard! Some websites, like STL Ocarina's forum and Songbird Ocarina have Tabs (fingering charts pretty much) but no sheet music. Even if I wanted to pay for it, the quantity of work made for Ocarina is...lacking.
As such, i'm going to take some of those tabs and translate them to sheet music. I'm going to put some of them (depending on their copyright licences and terms of use) right here.
So far i've been able to play bad apple without mistakes...at the correct speed...with only one or two slowdowns where I keep forgetting how to move my fingers.
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