type of material; conveyor belt

[Alyssia]

1. Is it legal to use stainless steel in building the robot?
2. Is there a "common" conveyor belt that most teams use?
3. What is the maximum pneumatic RAM?

Thank you.

[Aaron Lussier]

Originally posted by Alyssia
1. Is it legal to use stainless steel in building the robot?
2. Is there a "common" conveyor belt that most teams use?
3. What is the maximum pneumatic RAM?

Thank you.

1.Yes it is, as long as you have no sharp edges, or any of the touching the ground

2. Use for what? Wheels, Transmissions, Arm belts

3. I belive that you can only use 120psi before the saftey valve activates reliving pressure, not 100% sure on that one

[ahecht]

Originally posted by Alyssia
3. What is the maximum pneumatic RAM?

I'm not sure what you mean. The largest pneumatic piston you can order is 12" stroke and 2" bore. The maximum allowed pressure in the pistons is 60psi, and the max pressure allowed in the storage reseviors is 120psi. I suggest reading the pneumatics manual at http://www2.usfirst.org/2003comp/pne...anual_2003.pdf

[pauluffel]

Last year we made a robot with a conveyor belt to convey the balls into the goal. We used a rubber and cloth belt about a foot wide that was extremely ineffective as it was difficult to tension (and thus it kept sliding to one side), it was heavy (we lost about 1lb drilling holes in it), and it didn"t have enough friction (our pulleys couldn"t move it very well and it couldn"t pick up balls well). One type of belt we saw that looked good and I have seen used in places other than robots is lots of thin (about 3/4 inch wide) rubber/latex/something bands. They were like extruded trapezoids and thus they would fit into grooves in pulleys and would drift and since they were slightly elastic they could be tensioned nicely. They were also very high friction (sometimes used in cafeteria coveyors for trays because they grip well even when wet) so they would pull what they were used on and the pulleys would easily move them. I don"t know what these or called or where you can get them because I"ve never used them, but I think these would be the best things to use.

[cybermind]

A clarification on the "common" conveyer belt question: (#2)

We are thinking of using conveyer belting for driving (Like a tank). But since we are a rookie team we are not sure where to get the supplies or even what we need. Specifically what we wanted to know is:

What conveyer belt do you recomend?

What wheel are we supposed to use with the conveyer belt?

How did you attach the conveyer belt to the wheel?

Thank you for your help!

[SuperJake]

The belt we used on Li'l MOE in the 2001 season is a double-sided timing belt, 1 inch thick. It had excelent traction on the carpets and we never had one snap... we didn't have to modify it at all to use it, and it was easy to tighten. However, we did have to make our own wheels to make them lighter and to keep the 'treds' from comming off.

[Don Wright]

The maximum allowed pressure in the pistons is 60psi, and the max pressure allowed in the storage reseviors is 120psi.

While I believe this to be correct, and even think I read it somewhere, I can't seem to find it in the rules.

Can you help me out and tell me where in the rules or elsewhere this is stated? Thanks.

[AdamT]

Originally posted by cybermind
A clarification on the "common" conveyer belt question: (#2)

We are thinking of using conveyer belting for driving (Like a tank). But since we are a rookie team we are not sure where to get the supplies or even what we need. Specifically what we wanted to know is:

What conveyer belt do you recomend?

What wheel are we supposed to use with the conveyer belt?

How did you attach the conveyer belt to the wheel?

Thank you for your help!

OK, so you want a tread design. First off, if you have the money I like BrecoFlex....you should have received a catalog from them in your kit. They sell the material and the pullies for it. Otherwise you could make your own tank treads like we did two years ago (look in the bottom right of the picture with me and pink hair). You can also go with something like double sided rubber belting from Gates.

As for the wheels, in previous years teams have used conveyor belt material and attatched them to wheels...like these or these . We got material(we used neopreme) from McMasterCarr and attached it with screws (you could also use rivets). This year this is a little more tricky because FIRST will be stingy about metal on the playingfield...glue seems one of the only options in this respect....

[Mark Pierce]

On page 4 of the previously mentioned pneumatics manual:

http://www2.usfirst.org/2003comp/pne...anual_2003.pdf
the description of the components clearly state the pressures used. It looks like we have an initial pressure switch to tell the Robot Controller when to shut off the compressor, and a system (after the air tank) regulator which must be set no higher than 60 lbs. There is another regulator you can use after the system regulator if part of your system needs even lower pressure.

[Don Wright]

Thanks!!! I KNEW I read it somewhere, but I kept looking the the robot rules and it only states the 120 psi limit.

Thanks again!