Chief Delphi - What are some of your shop tips and tricks?

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Re: What are some of your shop tips and tricks?

1) These containers (I think). If they're the ones I recall us having, you can fit six in a tote and it lets you carry parts to competitions just like they are in your shop. Major key.

2) Worseaframe. Dirty trick, but it worked for us.

3) Clecos. If you build with rivets (and you should), you will wonder how you ever built without them.

4) A bench top 12V power supply (or even just an old robot battery) does wonders for getting your programmers up and running. Stick it all on a piece of plywood and get them busy.

Re: What are some of your shop tips and tricks?

Quote:

Originally Posted by GeeTwo (Post 1599349)

This stuff. It's great for controlling spacing if you can design on an 0.1" grid. We mark the holes to be drilled with a sharpie, then clamp and drill 1/16" pilot holes. This leaves the template for future use; remove it and follow up with final hole sizes. This is great for making unusual versaframe gussets, including on the 3-4-5 triangle, laying out grids of LEDs or knobs, and (with a little planning) even making a passable oval slot with only a drill press and hand file.

This actually a pretty neat idea.

Re: What are some of your shop tips and tricks?

One thing I intend to do but have yet to implement is to have foam cnc routed in the shape of all of our tools for the bottom of the toolbox drawers. So tired of having to reorganize the tools after they roll around for 5 competitions.

Ever have a wheel or a gear stuck on a drive shaft but don't have a bearing puller handy? Grab two channel lock pliers (or two adjustable wrenches) and open the jaws up all the way. Use the curved outside jaws as a base and use them both as a lever on opposite sides with equal force to pull the pinion or wheel off of the shaft. (see attached image)

Don't have an edge finder for the mill? Use a piece of paper to find zero on the surface or edge of your part.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V6xGkOWz7RU

Re: What are some of your shop tips and tricks?

Quote:

Originally Posted by Michael Hill (Post 1599351)

I've got the second one. It is fantastic. Tom's an awesome guy. Check out his YouTube channel https://youtube.com/user/oxtoolco?

Ohh man, I forgot about the YouTube Channel! It is good!

Re: What are some of your shop tips and tricks?

Quote:

Originally Posted by AdamHeard (Post 1599354)

This actually a pretty neat idea.

Thanks; Gixxy and I invented this process for the front panel of an 8-bit adder for his junior research project, and the team and I have continued developing ever since.

Quote:

Originally Posted by GeeTwo (Post 1599349)

This stuff. ..making a passable oval slot with only a drill press and hand file.

To elaborate, for an offseason drive chassis, we needed some 1/4" slots which allowed at least 1" of travel (to tension a chain run). We did this at 1.2" of travel (this technique requires a multiple of 0.4"). The attached image shows the four stages:

First, do the 1/16" pilot holes every other hole for the travel length
Then, remove the template and drill 1/4" holes for every other hole, including each end hole
Follow up with 1/4" holes for the remaining holes (it is critical that the piece be lined up to the bit for this step, or the bit will fall out of the tiny hole into one of the large ones, or off to one side)
Finally, use a flat file to knock off the scalloped edges. If you are not careful, you will wind up with a nearly rectangular hole rather than a nice slot with semicircular caps. It will still work, but won't look as nice.