Team Workshops

[Gemmendorfer]

For our team, we found a hackerspace (machine shop that had a few large extra rooms and some storage space) and built there. I want to say we paid $100 per month for the team to stay there as a membership fee/to use the space and the tools/machinery.

[Tyler2517]

We have a room in the school. We have a very small CNC machine (4X6 inch table) that we don't have much experience with. A really crummy drill press and a iffy band saw (new tools if we stay at the school soon). All other machining is done 45 minutes away at a community collage. We have had to fight to keep our space almost every year. Our school adviser is leaving this year and we are trying to figure out what to do.

[CENTURION]

Personally, I don't think laser, plasma, or waterjet are good choices for most FRC teams.

Plasma is generally sloppy, and is really designed for rough-cutting steel, not precision-cutting aluminum. For instance, if you want actually good holes, you're going to want to cut them undersize, and drill them out after

Laser and waterjet are both quite expensive. And not just the machines, the operating costs can really, really stack up.

Now, if you have a sponsor who can do laser or waterjet for you, that's a different story (Though I would rather have students do things in house, so they learn how to do it).

We're looking at building a CNC router for our sheet metal needs. They're much cheaper than the others, have more than enough accuracy for FRC purposes, can handle thicker parts without the messy kerf of plasma or water (just take more passes). And, you can do 2.5D parts, with pockets, counterbores, champfers, engraving, etc. And it will be a good holdover until you can get a nice CNC mill.

And you can build one yourself. This fella on youtube has a lot of great videos on homebuilding routers. However, if you want it to end up being accurate and rigid, you'll probably want a significant amount of mentor involvement (Many parts of it will not tolerate standard FRC-robot-level corner cutting )

[sanddrag]

Budget?

[geomapguy]

At school we have a floor mount drill press, bandsaw, and cutoff saw....1 sponsor has a manual mill and manual lathe...other sponsor on the other hand has about 40 CNC machines..plus manual stuff.

We like to design and prototype at both our shop and the smaller sponsor shop..final work is done on the CNC's