Patrick.
The 80/20 and similar extrusions are a solid low resource way to make an elevator, but it is a great weight hit.
I'm not saying don't do 80/20, but just hoping people explore the "254 style" of custom aluminum w/ bearings and realize that it doesn't have to be an insane amount of work. It easily can be a day of manually milling (as ours was about a half day of manually milling for a single robot) by someone who knows their way decently on a mill.
In the end, whatever gets the most robot done in the time it needs to get done is the better option, but I hope people don't assume that because "254 did it..." or did something similar, that it is impractical for another team to do it.
Quote:
Originally Posted by JamesCH95
There are many fastener locking solutions out there, but steer clear of split lock washers. I prefer nylock nuts and Nord lockwashers, personally. There is always safety wire and castle nuts for the supremely cautious.
You can always brute-force it and re-tighten critical fasteners after every match.
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Why steer clear?
Often times on our robots, due to our standardization on #10-32s and our love of lightweight manufacture, we can never even get close to proper preload on a bolt before we destroy the parts clamped. In these situations the spring force of a spring lock washer is helpful.
I agree for properly preloaded joints they aren't the solution, but it's surprisingly rare that we can properly preload on our robots without going to impractically small fasteners.