While using Roboteq controller in Robot Combat explicitly voids the product warranty, this has not prevented making the AX2550 be one of the most popular choice for this sport where absolute brutality rules. Finally succumbing to a wiring error, one badly bruised unit made it back to our labs after 5 years surviving 200+ fights, during which the robot was hammered, rammed into, or thrown up to 10ft in the air.

Click to view enlarged photo of bruised controller

The returned controller was fitted on "Ripper", the UK 2011 Heavy Weight Champion. It was fitted in earlier versions of the robot and outlasted three motors that eventually burned of overload. This video shows the final fight and Ripper's decisive win against another Roboteq powered champion.

Robot Combat is quite a spectacle, akin in some ways to gladiator fights of antiquity. The brutality of the extreme collisions metal against metal is hard to describe, and it is only partially rendered in video.In the case of the AX2550, the design features key to survival are, among others:

• Heavy-duty aluminum extrusion enclosure
• No jumpers on the PCB
• Solid attachment of the power transistors against he heat-sinking extrusion
• Dependable high power connections to the battery and motors

While we were very apprehensive to see our controllers used by Robot Combat users, the experience turned out to be very beneficial, as it helped making the product more dependable to our traditional industrial users and OEMs.