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Unread 05-05-2016, 00:18
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Re: Waterjet vs. Manual Build Process?

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Originally Posted by Fusion_Clint View Post
Not all of the kids want to be Mech Engineers, FIRST is about the kids trying what they are interested in and finding their passion. Some want to be Engineers, some want to be machine operators, welders, or accountants.
That's true, but for the kids who want it I think they should be allowed access to the waterjetting capabilities the team has. If somebody wants to do things by hand, all power to them- prototyping and the like can be by hand anyway.
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Unread 05-05-2016, 00:30
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Re: Waterjet vs. Manual Build Process?

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Originally Posted by Kevin Leonard View Post
A few notes.
CNC or Waterjet equipment is NOT NECESSARY to be competitive. 5254 was highly competitive the past two years despite using almost exclusively COTS parts from VEXPro.
I 100% agree that they are not necessary. Our 2013 robot was built in a 20' shipping container with a tabletop mill, a small amount of outsourced mentor machining, and a box of scraps; made it to Einstein. 2014, same container, added a Bridgeport mill and a Harbor Freight mini lathe, nearly beat team 254 for the World Championship Title. 2015, actual shop space with reasonable manual machines, all CNC parts outsourced to sponsors, won Champs. Needed, no, but it can make life go smoother some times.
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Last edited by RoboChair : 05-05-2016 at 01:40.
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Unread 05-05-2016, 07:26
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Re: Waterjet vs. Manual Build Process?

I've got a few different views on this, mind you I'm from the programming side of the house. Also, waterjet/CNC, consider what's more appropriate. A waterjet is nice but may require significantly more maintenance and upkeep than a CNC. Look at the sustainment costs for each before deciding. I think a waterjet starts at $80k, if you can get one for significantly less please tell us.

1) On the loss of hands on. I've had some debate with one of the other mentors on this who thinks everything should be done by hand. In the real world you will not be cutting everything manually. In fact, you would likely be fired for attempting this. It's not always worth it to build everything by hand or from scratch.

2) You don't have to give up hand cutting entirely. This year about half our robot was hand cut (or could have been, would have to check) and half was waterjet/CNC. Our main frame was box tubing and wood ribs. A few pieces were water jet and bent with a brake. One of our components was right angle aluminum and was hand cut with a hack saw. Determining which is the most appropriate method is another part of engineering (I can build this and it costs X or I can go to home depot and it costs Y).

3) Beware the CAD Trap and Prototype. One thing we've sometimes become trapped by is the design trap of trying to get the robot fully designed and then building it. If we came across an issue, sometimes it would be too late into build season to fix. Hand building can be easier if you don't have as much of a delay for prototyping. Our original drive train this year got stuck on the moat and we did a quick redesign to fix it. This wouldn't have been as easy in years of heavy dependency on CNC/waterjet where we send the components out for manufacture.

On a different note, if you don't do it already I recommend you build a practice robot in addition to the competition robot. If you do, try to build the practice first and use it for prototyping, programming, and learning how to build the competition robot. Your programmers will thank you and the build quality of your competition robot will greatly improve.
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Unread 05-05-2016, 07:54
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Re: Waterjet vs. Manual Build Process?

My day job is implementing an integrating CNC and other computer based manufacturing techniques in existing manufacturing processes. The correct answer here is; Do what works for you. Some parts the only way to make them is to have them done on a 5 axis CNC. Others, can and should be done with a drill press and a jigsaw. It depends on complexity and the tools and skills you have on hand. If you have easy access to a waterjet, use that. but if you just need a rectangular spacer with a 1/4" hole roughly in the center, a waterjet is overkill and the set up time will be longer than just using a drill press. For each part spend a SHORT period of time evaluating your options and use what makes the most sense.

I guarantee you that not every part can be made with the waterjet and some handwork is going to be required anyway. There will be plenty of hand work no matter how much stuff you get made on some flavor of CNC.

Last edited by BeardyMentor : 05-05-2016 at 08:28.
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Unread 05-05-2016, 07:58
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Re: Waterjet vs. Manual Build Process?

Water jetting is wonderful if you have a local business that will help. We design in Solid works. It wasn't free. We spent about 400$ total on water jetted parts. It was well worth the budget. 1 day turn around as apposed to days and days to make them in house. The smaller parts - gussets, shaft adapters, motor mounts and other plates were done in house with a X-carve router. Last year we held classes teaching many students cad and design. This year over the summer we intend to cover cam with Hsm express. We are going to have a project with the cad cam and mechanical teams to design and build a 3d printer. The goal is to ingrain modern manufacturing methods and the maker mentality in the team and get away from the tedious hand crafted robot parts. It does take money. Find sponsors and fund raise. It's easier to get sponsors when you bring them in on a busy build night and they see kids hunch over the lap tops cading and the cnc stuff running full tilt. Of course there is always those parts that need careful hand crafting.
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Unread 05-05-2016, 08:45
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Re: Waterjet vs. Manual Build Process?

Could you give some input regarding a suggested CNC router for FRC use?
It has to be safe, big enough for FRC and easy enough to use with Solidworks or other CAD software.

Thanks!
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Unread 05-05-2016, 10:06
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Re: Waterjet vs. Manual Build Process?

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Originally Posted by Xifilzer View Post
Our team just recently completed our 3rd FRC Season, as a team we have adequate funding, a drill press, bandsaw, belt sanders, the whole ryobi handtool layout, dremels, etc. So far we have always used the machines in our shop to make our parts and only waterjetted or welded very few components such as sideplates (on a drivetrain).

For next year we are in a debate whether we move towards waterjetting more parts, and then assembling it, or if we stick to our current means which does also involve CAD before and during the build process.

The reason this debate exists is because we believe that waterjetting will give us more precise parts which will help us build a better robot, which means more awards, winning, which enables our team to get more money, have a better reputation, etc. But on the other hand we want to keep our current method because it allows kids to get close and personal with tools and encounter problems and learn really deep and intricate concepts when it comes to why mechanisms work, forces, etc that simply cannot be taught via simply assembling a robot. We also believe that our current method is more fun, even though the final product may not be something similar to the high quality of a NASA team.

Please give us your input regardless of which side you stand on, we would like to hear whatever you guys have to say!

Thank you for your time,
Sincerely,
Xifilzer
Waterjet resources aren't the instant step to make you build good quality robots. What makes a robot are the sound fundamentals of design and iterative process. It is a good step forward in ensuring build quality doesn't affect the performance of the robot as much.

1648 has transitioned from a team who fabricated all of their parts in-house with manual machines to one that heavily utilizes waterjet components (Thank you KSU and Georgia Tech!). The transition entailed not just a more detailed CAD, but a fundamentally different design methodology, as we switched from using 8020 framing and gussets towards sheet metal, plates, and tubing. If you wish to transition towards using a waterjet more, be sure to have your students and mentors have the CAD skills and discipline to have up-to-date CADs. Don't be afraid to make revisions and cut the parts out again; I've had to recut parts on the waterjet before because my kids changed some dimensions of parts from additional testing and iteration.

If you have any questions on how to integrate a waterjet in your iterative prototyping process or in general, please feel free to pm me!
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Unread 05-05-2016, 19:23
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Re: Waterjet vs. Manual Build Process?

Our team has also recently obtained a waterjetting sponsor, who is willing to make sheet metal parts for us. What press brake do you all use do bend your sheet metal parts? We are looking for one that costs less than $2000.
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Unread 05-05-2016, 19:37
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Re: Waterjet vs. Manual Build Process?

Going to agree with BeardyMentor and Gdeaver on this:
You can't build the entire robot with the waterjet unless you simply are using a lot of other COTS parts.

There's nothing wrong with using a waterjet, CNC or whatever other tool you have access to; unless you eventually end up abdicating know-how from it. If you find you have some experienced engineers CAD/CAM/CNC your parts (IE the students have no part of the drawing, design or manufacture) for the students all the time: maybe those tools are not helping.

Also if your team is large enough hand crafting may not be a big deal.
Personally though, I think all students that want to do fabrication should hand craft before they start playing with CNC anything.
I find it somewhat distressing if a student can't tell me how to location find or square up parts on a mill or anything like that.

Last edited by techhelpbb : 05-05-2016 at 19:42.
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Unread 07-05-2016, 18:21
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Re: Waterjet vs. Manual Build Process?

Thank you all for your input, we greatly appreciate it! While we will continue to have this debate, the input we received from this greatly helps us, thanks again!

Sincerely,
Xifilzer
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Unread 07-05-2016, 21:35
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Re: Waterjet vs. Manual Build Process?

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Originally Posted by s5511 View Post
Our team has also recently obtained a waterjetting sponsor, who is willing to make sheet metal parts for us. What press brake do you all use do bend your sheet metal parts? We are looking for one that costs less than $2000.
It is a slight bit over $ 2,000 but we got this a year ago and it works well for many operations.

http://www.jettools.com/us/en/p/bpf-...t-clamp/752125
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Unread 08-05-2016, 01:30
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Re: Waterjet vs. Manual Build Process?

It will entirely depend on the resources that your team currently has. For our team we split the workload between tasks that needed high precision, and those that could get by on COTS parts or with less precision. The team did manual fabrication on the latter while our sponsor machined the parts that we had designed. The design + CNCing took roughly the same amount of time as the manual fabrication did, so we were able to move to integration much quicker than before.
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Unread 08-05-2016, 23:05
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Re: Waterjet vs. Manual Build Process?

This year our team acquired this CNC router. Although we have had computerized machining capabililties since about 2011 from a mentor's personal CNC Mill, the router was helpful to our team. In your case however you may pursue more digital machining. I recommend CNC wholeheartedly. The ability to customize drivetrain rails and mass produce repetitive parts is incredible and you will not regret it. You will still make parts by hand, but the really precise stuff can be saved for the CNC.
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Unread 09-05-2016, 14:07
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Re: Waterjet vs. Manual Build Process?

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Originally Posted by ClockworkGold View Post
This year our team acquired this CNC router. Although we have had computerized machining capabililties since about 2011 from a mentor's personal CNC Mill, the router was helpful to our team. In your case however you may pursue more digital machining. I recommend CNC wholeheartedly. The ability to customize drivetrain rails and mass produce repetitive parts is incredible and you will not regret it. You will still make parts by hand, but the really precise stuff can be saved for the CNC.
Did you cut Aluminum with the X-Carve? did you have any trouble with the belt? how did you loop the belt? with duct tape? I wish the belt was a continuous belt rather than a split belt.
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Unread 09-05-2016, 22:02
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Re: Waterjet vs. Manual Build Process?

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This year our team acquired this CNC router.
I'm also interested in what you were able to use the X-carve for aluminum wise. Were any modifications made to it to get the accuracy you were looking for?
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