Re: Acrylic Sheets
 

Chris, why would we replace the acrylic, It was a prototype, we are done with it now, we are moving on.

BTW It is possible to build a robot completely out of Polycarbonate, thats what our team does.

Iv seen a few teams use bits of acrylic. Sometimes it works, other times... it shatters with disasterus results.

My advice, use Polycarb, It machines similar to wood or aluminum. You can router it like wood... or cold bend it like aluminum.

Also, if you use polycarbonate, heat bending is very difficult. We almost never heat bend ours just because there is such a small window between bending and melting, or (molecular decomposition). I recomend Cold bending but then you need a large brake.

Re: Acrylic Sheets
 

I meant on a "real" module, if we build one for build season some year.

Re: Acrylic Sheets
 

And here I thought it was totally polycarb... :rolleyes:

Re: Acrylic Sheets
 

Actually, I think Acrylic is twice as clear as Polycarbonate or something like that. :)

I also would never use Acrylic anywhere on a robot. Drilling holes in the stuff results in cracking and you have to be really precise about bolting it. Polycarb just takes the slack. I do this demo where I clamp identical pieces of polycarbonate and acrylic to a table and whack each with a large hammer.

Re: Acrylic Sheets
 

we use acrylic all the time for prototyping (only when they are directly on an aluminum plate of course). Acrylic can be laser cut, which makes it really quick to put an idea together. No matter what plastic you use, make sure you have extras of your plastic parts at the competition and an easy swap out to boot. We must have gone through 3 polycarbonate motor mounts last year