95's Pre-season drive base done!

[JamesCH95]

Originally Posted by BrendanB

Nice drivebase 95!

Some really nice features I can spy. Loving the cutout on the gearboxes to get them out of the chassis easily along with the slots on the wheels for tensioning. Looks like can tackle crossing a bump or two. Seems a little lean on the crossbeams for competition but for an off-season robot it looks awesome!

Any ideas on how much it weighs?

Tolerances can be annoying. Last season we got our first taste of sending out parts to be made and soon learned if you need a hole drilled, add some wiggle room so you don't have to drill every hole out by hand when it comes time for assembly!

Thanks!

The thoughts on chassis rigidity would be to do a really good job of tying in the bumper plywood to the chassis and use it structurally reinforce the chassis on a competition bot, and/or just add more standoffs.

Not sure on weight... but the side plates are 1/8in, so it's not too bad.

Originally Posted by LedLover96

What is the flex like in that chassis? Just looking at how it has no supports up the middle, it seems like it would flex rather easily.

Edit:: I did not see the plate for the electronics before (I was only looking at the top picture). Does that work well as a middle support? (I am assuming so, at it is a big, flat plate plate, but weight-wise how is it?)

Flex is pretty well controlled as far as we can tell... but more testing is in order.

The 'belly-pan' works very well to connect everything together and provide good chassis stiffness. Right now it's a ~3/16in thick aluminum plate, so very stiff, but huge overkill and a bit heavier than it needs to be IMO.