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Originally Posted by Greg Needel
FRP = fiber-reinforced polymer...essentially it is aluminum that has fiberglass or some other composite in the material which gives it the characteristics of both metal and fiber....I'm not sure but this seems like it could get expensive
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Not quite. At least not in our case. FRP = fiberglass reinforced polyester.
As RBrandy pointed out, we used the square profile tubing for our robot and modified unistrut to provide connection points. There are certainly other ways to connect FRP components. We're looking at corner/T plates for this coming season. In a few instances we used nylon bolts and nuts to hold non-critical components together. They fared VERY well and are extremely light. We all know how quickly hardware can add weight to our robots!
As for availability, we purchased our FRP through Ryerson, a national distributor. McMaster Carr also carries FRP and actually has a wide assortment of shapes including sheets, u-channels, angles, solid and hollow rods, and square tubing. Prices are reasonable with square tubing going for about $3.50/foot. Check it out at
McMaster-Carr. It is drillable, machinable, paintable, and extremely easy to work with!
A picture of our application of FRP can be seen
here.
Sorry for the delay in responding to all the inquiries and good luck!
Sean