Is powder coating and annodizing worthwhile?

[waialua359]

How about doing it in-house?

Better yet, train students and have those students train other students once they're an alumni.

5 years and counting.

[ebarker]

Ask yourself "what are we trying to accomplish ?".

Looking good during the competition is a good reason.

Having a nice 'showbot' after the competition is a good reason.

This year we anodized, did graphics and all the rest. Since our regional we have showed it in front of a total of 30,000 across several events. It helps a lot with the roadshow.

Back to your basic question - what are you trying to accomplish ?

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[JohnBoucher]

One of our mentors is in the powder coating/dip molding business. It makes the bot look great. We dip coated the claw. Nice grip to the surface.

We also have a mentor that powder coats show car parts in his garage at home. He bought him mom a new stove so he could use the old one in the garage.

[Brandon Holley]

For us, its worth it.

We are constantly complimented on the look of our machine. Most of that has to do with it being anodized in our team colors.

It is not easy to fit the time into the build season schedule, but we have a pretty good idea of how much time we need, and when is the best time to ship the parts out.


-Brando

[Retired Starman]

For a team that's really organized, does good, honest design before starting construction, and can stick with the construction schedule, finishing metal is just another step in the process. It lets the judges know you are on top of things.

Either that or. . . Your robot looks like it was built by adults off in a shop somewhere else and wasn't really "kid-built". I saw one robot this year which was done by a veteran team. It had a beautiful anodized finish on parts that had been CNC fabricated. The robot looked great, until you saw the piece of unfinished 1 by 8 wood, held on with some rather ugly right-angle brackets, that was being used as the minibot deployment unit. It was painfully obvious which parts of the robot the kids had built and which had been done by mentors/sponsors.

There are other alternatives which are easy and good looking without having to send the parts out to the pros. One technique I use in my home shop is to bead blast (like sandblasting but with glass beads rather than sand). This removes mill marks, dirt, printing, etc. from the aluminum and leaves a satin finish. Since the satin finish on bare aluminum oxidizes quickly, I immediately spray the piece with a clear paint, either Krylon or Rustolium clear. This seals the surface, keeping the parts looking nice. They still have the aluminum metal look,

Students can easily finish aluminum like this. You might also want to experiment with paint or tinted clear lacquers after bead blasting. This can all be done by students, which is the real goal.

Dr. Bob

[BrendanB]

It is only worth it if you have the time in your schedule to do it. One of the best operations I have seen is making two robots and upon completing the fabrication of parts, send one set out for anodizing/powder coating while you assemble the other set. Unless you are 254/968/233/1114 that is!

Be cautious of whether or not it is something you can do easily without sacrificing your performance. Seeing beautifully painted robots on the field that can't do squat because they either don't work or weren't finished is very sad at the cost of a paint job.

[Travis Hoffman]

How much weight does a fully powder-coated frame add to the robot? Anyone ever do the math?

Also, what about polishing exposed aluminum as an alternative? You can make such parts bling pretty well that way.

The only year we powder coated our bot was in 2003. Up close, it looks like it went through a war (given the nature of the game, that is fairly close to the truth). Such battle scars don't show as much on bare aluminum. Our 2004 robot looks much better after the fact.

You can also paint your lexan guarding or use vinyl graphics to add color and style to the bot. We used vinyl coverings this year: Example

3193 uses spray paint for plastic and sprays the inside of their lexan - looks really sharp and doesn't get scratched: Example

[Brandon Holley]

Originally Posted by BrendanB

Be cautious of whether or not it is something you can do easily without sacrificing your performance. Seeing beautifully painted robots on the field that can't do squat because they either don't work or weren't finished is very sad at the cost of a paint job.

I agree, but want to point out one observation. You see very few beautiful, well designed, anodized/powdercoated/painted robots that don't perform well on the field. This may seem obvious, but I thought it was worth pointing out.

The teams who are capable of finishing a robot and making it look beautiful, are the ones that are organized and have a solid plan going into the season. These are the teams that know where they need to get to and how to get there to get the finishing touches on the bot to make it look great.

-Brando

[Akash Rastogi]

Originally Posted by Retired Starman

Either that or. . . Your robot looks like it was built by adults off in a shop somewhere else and wasn't really "kid-built". I saw one robot this year which was done by a veteran team. It had a beautiful anodized finish on parts that had been CNC fabricated. The robot looked great, until you saw the piece of unfinished 1 by 8 wood, held on with some rather ugly right-angle brackets, that was being used as the minibot deployment unit. It was painfully obvious which parts of the robot the kids had built and which had been done by mentors/sponsors.

Dr. Bob

I don't think this is a debate you want to get into.

Reevaluate your statements and assumptions before you post again please.

[JesseK]

If you have a linear-slide based elevator that uses ABS as its low-friction sliders, powder-coating is TOTALLY WORTH IT. There was a very noticable difference in lift motor load between our practice and production robot this year because of it.

Other than that -- sure it's a p.i.t.a. sometimes, but in the end it's worth it. You have a product for the whole year, not just a product for the competition season. Also, if you're worried about redoing welds (well, that you have to worry about it is a separate issue) -- duct tape adheres to powder coat better than raw aluminum (FWIW).

[Mark Holschuh]

There may be instances where you have aluminum parts sliding on other aluminum parts. You may want to hard anodize one or both of the parts to reduce wear in these situations. I know that teams 2194 and 171 have done this.

[BrendanB]

Originally Posted by Brandon Holley

I agree, but want to point out one observation. You see very few beautiful, well designed, anodized/powdercoated/painted robots that don't perform well on the field. This may seem obvious, but I thought it was worth pointing out.


-Brando

I'd agree if they were "well designed" but I have seen many painted/powder coated robots that performed very poor or not at all.

[sgreco]

It seems that most people are adbising to anodize/powdercoat if you have time. This is good advice, but depending on the resources for your team, it may not be the right choice. My team has reasonable resources, I would consider us fortunate, but we are slow when it comes to building and designing. We've only ever anodized once, and that was for our swerve modules in 2009. For us, anodizing is a ice to have, but we know the build season is short, and until we improve our schedule, we go into a build season assuming we won't anodize.

It's really a matter of what's right for your team. Karthik would tell you to analyze your team's resources, and make sure you don't try what you aren't capable of. This is great advice.

[AdamHeard]

Here's a point I haven't seen raised. Relationship between practice bots and powdercoating.

The fact that we make a practice bot means there is no stress to start assembly of comp bot early in season, we often won't even start until week 5.

[XaulZan11]

Some many take this the wrong way or overexaggerate this but: A powder coated robot has an advantage of getting picked over a non-powder coated robot, for me atleast. Depending on the depth of the regional, your third robot may just be playing defense and won't be asked to score much. If the regional is very shallow, you may just want your 3rd partner not to lose you the regional (with red cards this year, this was a factor). So, you essentially want a smart teams that understands the rules and won't get penalties or get in you and your scoring partner's way. If a team took the time and effort to find someone to powder coat and scheduled it, the team is probably more likely to be smart, to read the rules, and think about strategy than an equally good robot but looks messy and sloppely put together. Its a very minor factor in the grand scheme of alliance selection, but there is a practical advantage to powder coated (or just a clean, good looking) robot. (This can also be applied to pit organization, team shirts, team cheers, interaction with team members in the stand...your preformance on the field is not the only thing that matters in getting selected, especially as 3rd robot).