Designing for Powder Coating

[rsisk]

If you add or modify parts after the powder coating is done, they won't be powder coated.

We PC with black, so using black spray paint for added parts doesn't look to bad

[techhelpbb]

Originally Posted by rsisk

If you add or modify parts after the powder coating is done, they won't be powder coated.

We PC with black, so using black spray paint for added parts doesn't look to bad

Unless, like Team 11, you powder coat and bake the parts yourself.
Then you only see that if the part was thrown together or made on the road.

You do need to consider the hole sizes if you allow the powder to get into the holes.

Team 11 uses sand paper, grinds, sand blasts and masks parts as preparation.

[Chadfrom308]

We got it for the first time last year. We didn't do any preparation, it was a kind of a last minute thing. Unless your robot needs super tight tolerances, it wont make a difference. We had had to drill out a few holes for rivets because they were tight. But other than that, I don't think we did much else. We didn't weld, so we powdercoated literally everything with no tape or whatever to keep areas clear.

[craigboez]

For teams that use a WCD chassis, do you make any specific allowances for the pockets in the siderail that the bearing blocks ride in?

[sanddrag]

Originally Posted by craigboez

For teams that use a WCD chassis, do you make any specific allowances for the pockets in the siderail that the bearing blocks ride in?

We do. I absolutely hate having to file/sand off powder coat. So, we put in an allowance for it. More importantly, we make our axles a little longer too. I can never remember how much the allowance was, and every year, we have to look back at the previous year's robot or CAD model.

This is something we need to add to our internal Standard Operating Procedure.

[Allison]

Another thing to note if you are doing a light color (say fluorescent yellow) things like sharpie and the material call out printed on your parts will show through your powder.

Like 254 we anodize all tight tolerance parts.

For clean up we have found that rivet holes especially 1/8" have to be reamed. Masking parts typically makes for a cleaner look than sanding/filing off powder.

[Cory]

Originally Posted by craigboez

For teams that use a WCD chassis, do you make any specific allowances for the pockets in the siderail that the bearing blocks ride in?

I believe we add .015 to the cutouts on our frame.

[GDB]

Our sponsor sandblasted it for us, so yeah just find a sponsor that would be willing to do that, or sandblast it yourself.

When we powder coated our arm, we had to cut off part of the underneath of the catapult arm, so as long as you get it clean cut and nice looking you won't need to powder coat it because we still got the Imagery award and Engineering Inspiration and Regional winner all in one Regional.

[craigboez]

Has anybody weighed their chassis before and after powdercoating - how much weight should I expect it will add?

[75vs1885]

When I was dealing with powder coating, 1885, I would just drill the hole over again, the little powder coating that was in the hole would come right off.
You can also ask the person not to put any powder in the holes....that's probably the easiest thing.
But if you take a bolt and thread it through then it would probably come off itself.

[Tyler2517]

Out of curiosity who is the sponsor? I am local and am wondering about getting some personal parts powder coated.