Re: Need some recommendations for tooling
 

Turn around time is pretty critical, I agree with you there!

We eventually found a laser cutting sponsor who will do our bellypans/gussets with 24-48 hour turn around.

Our CNC Milling sponsor is more like 1-2 weeks.

If you don't like the turn around times you are currently getting, it could be worth it to either:

1. Plan ahead more with your current sponsor to communicate turn around times and scheduling needs
2. Keep calling and find more sponsors with better turn around times ;)

It is impressive how many shops in our area we still haven't even reached out to, simply because all of our teams mfg needs are met at the moment.

-Mike

Re: Need some recommendations for tooling
 

Ok, I'm seeing a lot of debate here on what to purchase tooling wise. But I don't recall seeing a very simple question answered:

What is the purpose of this money?

Is it to enable your team to teach more students how to fabricate parts?

Is it to bring some CNC fabrication into the school?

Is it to improve performance of the school robotics team?


What's your goal?

Re: Need some recommendations for tooling
 

I'd say a good combination of all of it.

We Will probably do better with help of these tools. There is times especially early in the season where we want to build a specific part but just plain can't.

By having a working mill, lathe, and router people will probably learn a lot more about manufacturing then they do with our still press.

Its also going to be cool to bring cnc manufacturing to the school. We generally do help other clubs and teachers so once they figure out we have this machine We will probably receive quite a few cool projects.

Re: Need some recommendations for tooling
 

Worst case, pay them.

An hour or two of waterjet runtime is fairly cheap,and can be a LOT of parts (easily an entire robots worth) if you don't crazy with design.

Also, the router you referenced above really isn't something you want for production FRC.

Re: Need some recommendations for tooling
 

It looks like his budget for a CNC router is around $1,000 - $2,000. Is there a CNC for around $2,000 that you think is reasonable for FRC?

Unless you just mean the DeWalt router he is getting for the Shapeoko, in which case, whoops.

Re: Need some recommendations for tooling
 

Unfortunately no, there isn't for meaningful production.

You can with a good deal of work potentially make something, but there isn't anything close to a turn key machine in that price range that will make real quantities of gussets, gearbox plates, etc...

The good news is the with some smart design, $1-2k can pay for 3-5 seasons of waterjetting and buy time to raise money for a useful machine.

Re: Need some recommendations for tooling
 

I still see some usefulness to even a very lightweight benchtop CNC router. If nothing else, it can teach students how to do CAM, which can help them better understand and design parts they send out. You can do fun little projects out of wood and plastic reasonably well. I have seen evidence, read posts, etc. that you CAN do aluminum... sorta... maybe... frustratingly...

I just wouldn't get my hopes up thinking that I'm going to keep 0.001" tolerances on the envelope and get a meaningful material removal rate on a $1000 machine. You certainly aren't just going to slap a piece of 1"x2" extrusion on the bed and get perfect results. In my experience, it could even be significantly worse (time/accuracy) than just doing it in a drill press.

The first year we got our gantry mill (CNC Router Parts Pro) before we had it dialed in, I think I was doing sheet aluminum at ~0.02" DOC and maybe 50IPM. With such a poor material removal rate, some of the larger parts for the robot required 1-2 hours of cut time, which is tough on bits, and we were manually feeding coolant to keep the bit from instantly destroying itself. Turns out, some of this was poor feeds/speeds, some was poor workholding, some was backlash due to a loose pulley setscrew on the X axis. All these poor conditions wore out a router that wasn't intended to do this kind of work, increasing its runout, which accelerated the issue. Every mistake was a $25 bit, and we were lucky to have them last more than an hour or two with our very poor cutting conditions. Truth be told, we would likely have been better off with a bandsaw and paper templates.

So, my main point is to just set appropriate expectations for the equipment. Also, try to get as much experience on it as possible in the fall, and make sure your spring is spent on robot design, not fighting with a new tool. Even with purchasing a CNC router, taking the advice about finding a flat parts machining sponsor or paying to have the work done until you can afford a more rigid machine ($7-10K) is probably good advice.

Re: Need some recommendations for tooling
 

Pick one and do it well.

If the goal is teaching students about CNC perhaps partner with your school and, instead of spending $2k on a mediocre tool they will be able to work with you to purchase a better system and support you with a class on it. I'd be surprised if there's no grants for high tech manufacturing in schools these days.

If it's teaching machining - fine, then I'd argue you'd get far more out of fixing up your existing mill, getting a decent lathe, and investing in materials and tooling. Oh, and again, work with your school to find some educational support.


If the goal is improve your performance - prototyping parts. You can buy drives, you can buy gearboxes. And in the short term I'd argue it's substantially cheaper to do that than to invest in the capabilities to make them yourself.

Any of these WILL result in your team being more effective at FIRST's mission. Two of them could provide benefits for years to come if set up properly.

Re: Need some recommendations for tooling
 

Every FRC team should watch Clickspring

His manual fabrication skills put me to shame, just so good with so little

Machining is 10% skill 90% knowledge, a little knowledge will take you farther than a little skill.

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCwo...Sx6R6-BnIjS2MA

Re: Need some recommendations for tooling
 

Not really, you get a way straighter broached hole with a rotary broach, with way less work (assuming your machine isn't a POS, which a round column mill is).

I'd be more concerned about radial alignment than anything with rotary broaching on a manual mill. That's going to be difficult. rotary broaching is much better suited to lathes and CNC mills.

Re: Need some recommendations for tooling
 

We currently have only one tool that cost more than about $200 new - a nice (though roughly used) floor-model drill press. We have a couple of peripheral mentors with some milling and lathing experience, so we could probably get some hand-on lessons if we started early. (None of our core mentors has used a mill, one has some experience with a lathe, AFAIK.) I also know an artist who does his work on a wood lathe I could probably get to teach us a bit, so I'm definitely interested in getting a lathe big enough for axles and shafts. As I went through some of the recommended posts, then backed a way a bit, I noticed some combination lathe/mills for only a few hundred dollars more than the lathes. Example. Is this something we would likely find to be more useful than a straight lathe, or is this a "catdog" type device that is no good at either function, or what?

Also, If buying a ~1200 lathe or ~1600 lathe/mill, (probably 8" x 16") how much additional budget should we set aside for initial tooling, calipers, and so forth? (I expect that those are two different numbers.)

Edit: Or is there some other tool or set of tools we should be looking at ahead of a lathe?

Edit2: Our goals are basically twofold - primary is to expose the students to additional experiences, and secondary to improve our fabrication capability to improve our robots, increasing inspiration through increased competitive success.

Edit 3: We are also slammed for space this year -- as far as we are certain, we will be working out of a "portable" building with only a a few 20A 110 circuits, other than the window unit A/C. Drive practice will be in a parking lot.

Re: Need some recommendations for tooling
 

I don't have any experience with them, but here is some wisdom from Cory on the subject.

https://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/s...4&postcount=12

Re: Need some recommendations for tooling
 

Yeah they are total crap. Save your money up for 2 good standalone tools. You're going to end up wishing you'd done so anyways once you use one of those abominations.

Re: Need some recommendations for tooling
 

Thanks, I suspected as much, but had to check. Money is less of an issue for us than space right now. We may wind up working out of a 24'x32' space with a floor about 3 degrees off level this year, for build, programming, web, chairman's, sponsors, everything. We can also store stuff in our 16 foot trailer. We're down about 30% on "dedicated (storage)" space and over 50% on "dedicated + worktime" space from last year.

Re: Need some recommendations for tooling
 

seconded.