Re: 10-32 or 10-24?
 

While this will work in some applications, be careful. Last season, we stripped the hex heads of many a versaplanetary set screw by doing this.

I had intended to include a warning... Guess I forgot.

Although they seem to fit well... It's a bad idea.

Re: 10-32 or 10-24?
 

Same here. 3/16" rivets plus 10-32s FTW in frame construction.

We also drilled out all the Vex stuff (sprockets, wheels, etc.) so we can use 10-32 on those too.

Re: 10-32 or 10-24?
 

We've hidden all metric tools in a box. A few mentors and trusted students know where it is... most team members don't know about it. If a student really needs a metric wrench, they'll ask a mentor and we will give them the wrench. We haven't stripped a bolt head using a metric wrench in years. :]


As for the topic of which bolts we use, 1/4-20 was our standard frame fastener, but we're moving towards rivets and smaller bolts. We've had issues with people not distinguishing between 10-24 and 10-32 (and 8-32). Better organization, training, standardization, and one of these should help us.

Re: 10-32 or 10-24?
 

Hence why we've upped the set screw from 1/8" to 3/16" for a deeper Hex socket. :)

-Aren

Re: 10-32 or 10-24?
 

Gotta love these guys. Thanks for continuing to make those little adjustments.

Re: 10-32 or 10-24?
 

Ok, build season is getting to me. I saw this post, and then the thread about "Multithreading on Java" and I thought they were related...

Re: 10-32 or 10-24?
 

Haha, same here, along with the 10-24 nuts that are required when we need to use 10-24 shoulder bolts or something COTS that needs them. We try to standardize to 10-32 and 1/4-20 depending on the application. This lets us use a single double ended open end wrench for almost all the nuts. Sadly even with only 2 sizes we need almost every alen key in the set due to different hex heads being used for different bolts (the button heads are smaller than the socket heads, etc...) as well as set screws that don't have nuts.

Re: 10-32 or 10-24?
 

We have an assortment of 6-32, 8-32, 10-32, 1/4-20.
10-24 is kept out of the shop so nobody tries to put a 10-24 screw in a 10-32 tapped hole.

Re: 10-32 or 10-24?
 

We use 10-32 mostly. Often we use a PEM nut in sheet metal so that means we drill a .25 inch hole and use a flange button head 10-32. This is nice because we only need an allen hex key to take things apart and the nut is attached to the metal. When, we need to shed a little weight, we knock out the PEM to switch it 1/4" rivet. We can also drill it out to add a 1/4-20, which never happens.

Re: 10-32 or 10-24?
 

We use 1/4-20, 10-24, 10-32, 8-32, 6-32, and 4-40. Typically 10-24 are used in aluminum that we have tapped and 10-32 in steel or other harder materials. Keeping the two separate is somewhat challenging

Re: 10-32 or 10-24?
 

We typically use 10-32, 8-32, 6-32 SHCS and 3/16" and 1/8" rivets.

For the most part, #10's are used for COTS items, everything else is riveted of #8 or #6. Even #10's are overkill in most applications.

Re: 10-32 or 10-24?
 

10-32's!!!

Easier to tap (saves money with fewer broken taps), stronger, get a tapped hole in thinner material.

We don't use too many on our robot. We find that for structure, welding is way lighter than 1/4-20's. For prototypes, we use 1/4-20, and (unfortunately) 1/4-28's, as we have thousands of these stupid things.

On things that I work on, I don't usually end up with too many 10 sized hardware. I find that 99% of the time, something else will fail before that bolt, so I go with 8-32's for weight.

Re: 10-32 or 10-24?
 

We grudgingly use 10-32 since a load of standard FRC hardware uses it for reasons I cannot discern.

I vastly prefer 10-24 since we are never doing anything with our bolts that requires fine thread and course thread goes together faster, but the potential confusion stemming from having two different sets of size-10 hardware outweighs the benefit.

Re: 10-32 or 10-24?
 

I'm no professional on the advantages of various screw sizes and threads, but I will say this. Whatever you choose to use, standardize it! Nobody needs to deal with figure out what type of screw they used for a specific hole when they have 30 seconds left in a time out before the 3rd match of the Einstein finals (obviously a bit of an extreme scenario, but the same thing applies for the entire build season. And competition season. And postseason and preseason). Choosing one size just simplifies things. You can always buy the same hex driver, wrench, drillbit, screw, nut, washer, tap, etc. and, except for when you have COTs parts with a different screw, you never have to worry about ordering anything else or searching through your supplies to find the right size or having to figure out what is the optimal screw to put in each and every hole. I can't imagine that the structural benefits of having the perfect screw for every joint is worth all of the hassle.