SCUTTLE Drivetrain Redesign

I’m excited to share my custom SCUTTLE bot, built with several specially machined components to reflect my design style and machining capabilities. DISCLAIMER: I had to rebuild my computer midway through building SCUTTLE and downgraded from Solidworks 2023 to 2022 so I had to remodel from scratch... as a result some details got lost in translation. The main focus of my redesign was the drivetrain. The stock ball bearings were replaced with a tapered roller bearing + angular contact bearing combination, with preload adjusted via nylock nuts on either side of the wheel shaft. This eliminates the slight 'play' the SCUTTLE would have had otherwise, also allowing for a tighter fit between the wheel shaft and the bearing races vs. the M8 bolt which would have been much looser in the 608 bearing race. I also upgraded the motors, swapping out the original DC planetary gearbox motors for gearless BLDC motors with built-in hall effect sensors for angular position feedback. Paired with the existing belt drive, the goal was to reduce backlash - a lesson I've learned has plagued robotic arms but might not have been as detrimental to scuttle? For the electronics, I opted for acrylic paneling instead of DIN rail. All components are mounted using double-sided tape—a method I’ve trusted for years in my RC hobby, where it has held up to high-impact use without failure. This project was both a technical challenge and a personal tribute to David Malawey’s inspiring work on SCUTTLE. After spending much of my summer in the student machine shop, I wanted to push myself further and build a SCUTTLE of my own, in anticipation of an upcoming mobile robotics course I'm taking this semester.