Best plywood bellypan mounting options
 

Hey all,

Our team plans to use a 9mm thick cut of Baltic Birch plywood for our bellypan. with the 2015 KoP base. We're looking for advice; what would be the best screws to fasten the plywood to the mounting holes?

Thanks!

Re: Best plywood bellypan mounting options
 

For plywood that thick, I think you should make sure you mount it above the flange on the bottom of the chassis - otherwise, you will be reducing your ground clearance. That being said, it is significantly more difficult, as the gearboxes and motors get in the way. If you can get the exact shape you need, and attach it before the gearboxes, you should be fine. We usually use self-tapping sheet metal screws because we have them around the shop. Wood screws, or machine screws drilled through with nuts would also be fine. That is a good amount of wood to be screwing into.

Re: Best plywood bellypan mounting options
 

I'm on the programming side, so my terms may be a little bit off here.

We've used Baltic birch for the past few years. We've used some small bolts with washers and lock nuts to hold it to the robot frame. I'd recommend against using screws to hold it to the frame due to possible failure modes. If they strip the wood, you're in trouble. If you have to repeatedly attach/remove the plywood, the holes will get looser every time.

I think we were using #10 bolts/screws.

Re: Best plywood bellypan mounting options
 

We were discussing how we're going to attach stuff to our robot, this past Saturday. We plan to use the kit chassis, but with slight modification to allow us to use the 6" version of the black/white kit style wheels. We already had a bunch of extra new wheels from a previous year. Doing this allows a thick piece of plywood to fit below the chassis.

But we also realized that our robot design this year makes it more sensible to not have the electronics mounted on the bottom of the robot. Our plan is to build a thin box to mount the electronics on the back of the robot, facing outward, and cover the box with a polycarbonate sheet. We first used this method in 2009 and it worked really well. Of course this year, the box will be a different size and orientation, to match the current electronics footprint, as well as the robot size/shape.

Re: Best plywood bellypan mounting options
 

I believe the holes under the AM14U2 are holes that accept 1/4-20, I would go a little smaller and don't forget the washers, it's critical that you use them.