Best methods of bumper mounting?

[evoluti1]

Originally Posted by philso

There have been many different excellent attachment methods mentioned in this thread. The most important thing to do is to pick one and design it in along with the rest of the robot rather than leave it as an afterthought.

THIS is the most important advice. Assuming your latches/pins are strong enough, a well-integrated design will have a much bigger impact on reliability and ease of use than which particular pin you buy.

If your frame tweaks and you end up needing a hammer to get your bumpers on and off, all of a sudden you won't care that you can remove your latches in 1 second instead of 2 seconds. Be sure your frame is strong and won't permanently parallelogram or deform when you get hit. A bellypan, be it plywood, polycarbonate, or laser-cut aluminum helps a lot with this. It doesn't have to be sophisticated.

Mount bumpers such that impacts get distributed along the length of horizontal member, rather than being concentrated at attachment points. If you're running WCD, you may need to design an additional rail above your wheels to accomplish this.