Plate Thickness
 

Out of curiosity, because I have never tried it on a team, but how thick generally are the plates used on robots like 1902 and 1369's 07's, where metal plating and spacers are used over the traditional aluminum extrusion or tubing.

My guess was 1/8" or 3/16".

http://www.chiefdelphi.com/media/photos/26796

This is plating right? Or is this just another form of Monocoque frame design?

Re: Plate Thickness
 

Dunno. But here is a ton of pictures. Looks to be about 1/8".

Re: Plate Thickness
 

It's not monocoque design, it's just a frame made from two plates with spacers between them. 1/8" most likely.

Re: Plate Thickness
 

We've been using the same design on 548's robots for the past few years. We use 3/16" plates connected with 1/2" dia spacers with 1/4-20 countersunk bolts with the thread tapped right in the spacer. We refer to the setup as clockwork spacers.

Re: Plate Thickness
 

Thanks for the info! Thats perfect. Have you had any complaints about this setup over a conventional aluminum tubing frame?

Re: Plate Thickness
 

We do the same thing, it's strong. The only difference would be that we use 10-32's for weight savings, and then drill the tap drill all the way through the spacers to hollow out a little more unnecessary meat.

Re: Plate Thickness
 

No, we love the design to death. It's lightweight, easy to design and extremely easy manufacture and maintain.

For the areas needing less strength we have also used 10-32's but, with 3/8" spacers