Laser Cutter And FRC

[iyermihir]

Originally Posted by DampRobot

I was wondering what experiences people have had with this machine in specific, and with laser engravers in general for FRC use. Were there any cool or innovative uses you found for this tool? What kind of parts did you use it to make, and how did they perform?

We used the TechShop lasers to make timing belt pulleys for our drivetrain this year. We use 9mm GT2 and our pulleys are made out of layers of 1/8" acrylic that are then attached to each other with acrylic cement. These pulleys are very cheap and they allow us to avoid having to wait for timing belt pulleys. One of the biggest benefits to making our pulleys this way is that we can use the laser to cut the hex which we have no other way of doing. The pulleys have not had any issues throughout the entire season. Its is also really easy to bring spares in case something happens as they are both cheap and light. We also used the laser to make the timing belt pulleys for our pick up. This was interesting because one of the pulleys was mounted on a piece of abs tube. The pulleys we cut for that were very flimsy as the bore size was not that much smaller than the outer diameter. After attaching them to the abs with the same acrylic cement, we have not had any issues with them breaking. We have access to a router at the school, but things that require a hex or other special patterns, we use the laser as long as the part will not be taking too much load.

-Mihir Iyer