powder coat!!!!
 

the team just weighed our practice bot and it came in at 119.5. we have a sponsor willing to powder coat our bot for us. My question is how much weight will it add, can we afford to coat it or not?

119.5 lbs

the powder coat is 2mm thick.

Re: powder coat!!!!
 

I think you have your weight wrong.

If you are 199.5 pounds already then you have to do some serious weight reduction. However, if it is a typo and it only weighs 99.5 lbs, then feel free to powder coat. At most it would add half a pound on the very high side. We powder coated this year and it is hardly a noticeable weight.

You may be running out of time to do it though

Re: powder coat!!!!
 

Bust out the Dremel and cutoff wheel. You have some bolt threads to trim!

Re: powder coat!!!!
 

If your robot is at 119.5 before PC, there is no way you will stay under 120lbs after PC an entire robot.

Lighten up areas, if possible first.

Effectively adding up the actual weight of the powder prior to applying is NOT an accurate way to measure how much more weight will be added.

*speaking from experience. I just PC our robot this past weekend which weighed in at about 110 lbs prior to spraying.
Robot now weighs 114.xx after completion.

Re: powder coat!!!!
 

Powder coat is 0.2mm thick (not 2mm), but even then it can easily add several pounds to your robot.

Re: powder coat!!!!
 

I powdercoat most stuff for my team, and have sometimes added as much as 30 thou just in powder buildup. It really depends on operator skill.

You probably don't want to coat without taking something off. You can probably nickel and dime your way to under weight (with the coating), but unless you want to be right on 120, you better consider taking something off (extra motors, extra wire, camera, etc). Either way, I'd reccomend taking a serious look at anywhere you could use thinner materials. It's very possible, and very un fun, to have to lighten your robot on Thirsday because your school scale was wrong.

Also, keep in mind, powdercoat looks terrible if you start punching lightening holes in it. You shouldn't coat anything you think you might have to lighten, or do major filing or drilling on.