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I recently got back from my yearly trip to the beach with the family and finally decided to do some research on an idea I’ve had the past couple of years. Every day that we are on the beach we pack several small coolers of food and drinks and it is up to me basically to carry these coolers down to our beach chairs and then get them back to the condo. I am thinking of building an RC platform on tracks that could carry the weight of a loaded yeti cooler (100 lbs or so). I’m not savvy on RC components or anything like that hence the reason I’m posting here. What would be a recommendation on what to build and how? I don’t want to get too elaborate, was actually thinking of taking like a garden wagon and adapting RC tracks to it. Portability is going to be huge, it will need to be disassembled so it can be transported easily in the back of a pickup or maybe even the back of an SUV. Any help or ideas would be greatly appreciated.
The biggest challenge will be getting it to turn in the sand. With 100+ pound cooler it will require a lot of power. I’d recommend doing something with wheelchair motors, and probably a wheeled platform instead of tracks. Tracks will help prevent high-centering but will add a lot of cost and complication to the design. You might be able to accomplish the same thing with a 6WD wheeled robot. A 2WD robot with casters will be easiest to turn but you may lose traction in some scenarios. Maybe the simplest from a design stand point would be to use 4 wheelchair motors (2 sets) and direct drive 4 13″ tiller tires. This would give you a lot of power and you wouldn’t need to worry about chain coupling, which can be difficult. If you think your wagon is heavy duty enough you could strip it down to just the body and mount the wheelchair motors and batteries to it.
As far as disassembling it for portability, you would be able to slide the wheels off pretty easily. Another thing you could do to make transporting easy would be to make a ramp so that you can drive it in and out of the truck bed.
This is a cooler robot that we built for a customer (might be good for some ideas):
http://www.superdroidrobots.com/shop/custom.aspx/specialized-robots/83/#6WDCoolerHere are some links to the items I mentioned…
Wheelchair motors:
http://www.superdroidrobots.com/shop/item.aspx/dg-158a-24vdc-135-rpm-wheel-chair-motor-pair/1531/Direct drive wheelchair motor wheel and shaft set:
http://www.superdroidrobots.com/shop/item.aspx/direct-drive-wheelchair-motor-wheel-and-shaft-set-pair-13-inch-traction-lug/2237/And if you’d be interested in us building it for you, fill out our Custom Robot Request Form and we can give you a quote:
http://www.superdroidrobots.com/shop/custom.aspx/custom-robot-request/87/Good luck!
Thank you for the quick reply. I will give those links a look this evening and will probably fill out a request for a quote. Thanks again for your input.
I saw a “golf bag” carrier that follows you around, using sensors to track a little RF transmitter or IR “light” that you wear on your belt.
Something similar would work for a “cooler carrier”.
Something big enough to carry a loaded cooler, could also carry your trash can out to the curb.
I think that I’d stay away from wheels and casters. They will just “dig in” in sand.
LiPo batteries are MUCH lighter than lead acid.
Hi. We can definitely do this. We have made remote control coolers in the past. Please fill out our custom request form so we can better serve you. http://www.superdroidrobots.com/shop/custom.aspx/custom-robot-request/87/
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