Good Material For Bottom of Chassis

[Bonzabonz]

What is a good covering for the bottom of the robot chassis to mount things like the control system, battery, compressor, pneumatic manifold, motor controllers, etc.? Last year was my team's rookie year and be used a piece of pegboard (something like this). Probably needless to say, it didn't really hold up too well under the weight of heavier items (mainly the battery) and started to fall apart from the stresses of competition. I was wondering what other teams liked to use and what their experiences with different materials were.

[EricH]

Baltic birch plywood, if you can find some, cuts well and looks nice--and it's an insulating material. It's also pretty light.

[RandomStyuff]

I know many teams use some forms of plastic, mostly polycarbonate.
I've also seen teams use aluminium plate with nylon bolts for attaching parts.

[fb39ca4]

Plywood will work fine, as long as you make sure it is adequately supported around the battery area. We used 3/16" for the belly pan (as well as the rest of the chassis) and it holds up fine.

[Mike Marandola]

I have heard of teams using birch plywood, G-10 or garolite, and perforated polycarb. Just as a side note, we have used 1/16" perforated 3003 aluminum sheet for our bellypan and I would not recommend it. It sagged and bent around the edges like crazy. Maybe go thicker if you can find it, or 6061, but that is very expensive.

[MrForbes]

1/4 to 1/2" plywood usually works ok, although you need to provide some extra bracing under the battery unless it's right at the edge of the robot. Pegboard is not very strong....plywood is stronger. If you want to get fancy, you can use plastic or metal, but you might find that plywood gives you more stiffness for the weight, and is easy to attach stuff to, and the insulating is a good thing as well. It's not quite as "high tech" looking as other materials, for whatever that is worth.

[RomeroFRC5012]

My team during our rookie year used plywood and try to not use a too thick of wood because then the bolts under it would scrape the ground. Other than that it works great, didn't even crack until this summer when we were doing an outreach and took it off the cart at an angle.

[Dale]

We've used 3/16" black ABS plastic for the last few years with great success. Pretty much indestructible and easy to cut into odd shapes. We know Baltic Birch would be a good, and probably lighter, material. We avoid it because some scouts in the pits have been known to look down upon robots with lots of wood (for no good reason.) If we do use it we paint it to make it look less obviously, well, wooden.

[AdamHeard]

Originally Posted by Dale

We've used 3/16" black ABS plastic for the last few years with great success. Pretty much indestructible and easy to cut into odd shapes. We know Baltic Birch would be a good, and probably lighter, material. We avoid it because some scouts in the pits have been known to look down upon robots with lots of wood (for no good reason.) If we do use it we paint it to make it look less obviously, well, wooden.

If you spray it black it's no big deal.

Also, I wouldn't be too bummed about not playing with a team that looks down on wood like that. Their loss.

[GeeTwo]

We've used plastic pegboard recently to good effect; we don't have to drill nearly as many holes. We usually mount the battery box and compressor directly to the frame, and put the cRIO over some additional support; not sure if the roboRIO will require this.

I absolutely agree that the control board should be non-conducting. It doesn't really matter when everything is done correctly and nothing comes loose, but it reduces the chance of a jolt or a short when things don't go quite right. For example, we are salvaging last year's drive as a base for prototyping this year. This involved pulling off the manipulators, and several of the now-spare controllers. The kids left the supply wires for a couple of the talons in place, with breakers still in the PDB. Since they were sitting on a non-conductive board, there were no ill effects. If they had been on an aluminum board, I could only hope that the breakers would have tripped immediately!

[snoman]

we use aluminium road signs that were donated to us. we have been careful mounting our components and haven't had any issues. there are non conductive paints out there and we may try some this year to be safe.

[wireties]

We use polycarb to mount the electronics (thicker stuff for cRio than for the motor controllers etc) except for the battery. Lately our sheet metal sponsor is making fancy battery trays for us but in years past we used aluminum angle to stick-build reliable battery trays.

Being flexible with the battery location is a plus. If you can move it around a little (as the last design step) you can get the robot's COG just right.

[Ekcrbe]

Originally Posted by Bonzabonz

Probably needless to say, it didn't really hold up too well under the weight of heavier items (mainly the battery) and started to fall apart from the stresses of competition. I was wondering what other teams liked to use and what their experiences with different materials were.

You'd do best to avoid placing the battery directly on the bellypan/electrical board without other framework. The best thing to do would be to integrate some sort of specific case for the battery with the rest of the framework on the robot.

[theCADguy]

For the past 2 years at least, Team 20 has used Garolite for the past two years to cover the bottom of our chassis, as well as to mount the majority of our electronics. I cannot remember the thickness we used, probably 1/8". So far, it has worked well for us, since it's lightweight and relatively strong.

[Michael Hill]

Originally Posted by theCADguy

For the past 2 years at least, Team 20 has used Garolite for the past two years to cover the bottom of our chassis, as well as to mount the majority of our electronics. I cannot remember the thickness we used, probably 1/8". So far, it has worked well for us, since it's lightweight and relatively strong.

Can you machine on garolite easily? I've been thinking about using it, but hear bad things like delaminatione can happen.