Uses of Lexan

[ns3517]

Polycarbonate is a fantastic material! I like to use it for some gussets, also it can be used a bunch in prototyping. Like other people have said its good for intakes as well. In my experience it's been better to use in prototyping because it's much faster and easier to form and build with then sheet metal.

[jweston]

Lucky you! Lexan is wonderful stuff. Strong relative to its mass. Our team has found it very useful for protecting electronics. I'm sure your team will discover all sorts of ways to put it to good use.

[TedG]

Yes as others have mentioned, Lexan is good, strong stuff.
All kinds of uses, the thickness depends on your use for it.

The thicker stuff (.375") can be drilled and tapped at the face or edges to take a 10-32 screw (as an example) to fasten to.

.25" can be drilled and tapped on the face.

The 1/16" is great for guards and graphics, we use Velcro for stuff like that so we can take it off when working on the robot.

[cgmv123]

Obligatory reminder to make sure you're using polycarbonate/Lexan/Makrolon and not acrylic/Plexiglas/Lucite. Polycarbonate is probably the second most useful robot building material after aluminum. I consider it to be more versatile because it's easier to machine on the fly (less setup required). There are hundreds of uses for it even if your main robot frame is aluminum.

[jgerstein]

1257 uses a lot of Lexan/polycarbonate. In addition to some of the uses others have mentioned, our primary construction method for the past two years has been aluminum tubing with 1/4" polycarbonate gussets.

[niklas674]

Team 701 generally use lexan for prototyping. We also use it for covers for pieces that do not need to be exposed like the top of our shooter where the gears are.

[TAlholm]

I used to use polycarb or lexan as much as possible when making guards for components and other low stress structures. Although it didn't make its way onto 1991's robot, this past year I had made a sturdy scissor lift out of lexan and plastic bolts. I believe the weight of the scissor lift itself was between 1 and 2 lbs. Granted, the entire climbing mechansim was over 5 lbs.
Polycarb and lexan are very strong, and after talking with 4061 (I believe) at worlds, it makes a good amount of sense to use it for arms of an intake or other extending components. Mainly due to the flexibilty of the material, and unlike aluminum it usually goes back to its original shape.

(Just be sure to use lexan or polycarb, and not acrylic. It ends poorly if you try and bend it)

[Oblarg]

Originally Posted by cgmv123

Obligatory reminder to make sure you're using polycarbonate/Lexan/Makrolon and not acrylic/Plexiglas/Lucite

To be fair, there's really no mistaking the two. Polycarbonate is nigh-indestructible and will bend easily, while acrylic tends to crack/shatter if you so much as look at it wrong.

[marshall]

Originally Posted by Oblarg

acrylic tends to crack/shatter if you so much as look at it wrong.

Boom!