610's Preseason Drive

[Nate Laverdure]

Originally Posted by Ty Tremblay

Why use threaded rod across the entire width of the robot instead of nuts and bolts?

This is clearer when you consider the 2013 design. There was no machined inner block** that could have accepted any shorter fasteners. In that design, you use the whole end face of the ladder bar as a bearing surface to take any bending loads.

The ladder bar is a preloaded spacer. Because the threaded rod is so long, the spring rate is very low, which makes it possible to maintain big preloads on the rod, and therefore big clamping forces on the assembly.

**The opposite approach is taken in the 221 SimpleTube chassis... they use machined inner blocks to connect the ladder bars to the chassis rails.