pic: One Tough Train

[Rod]

Originally Posted by Matt Reiland

Wow, that is an incredible amount of weight to be putting into the base!! 3 rows of solid steel bar plus what looks to be large blocks of aluminum to hold them? Add in the weight of about 12ft of chain and you should be at about 75 lbs.
Have you considered aluminum tube maybe 1/8" wall 1" dia?

All the 1/4" in the base is a little heavy for a first robot, you could build the whole thing out of 80/20 and still be a bunch lighter. Just my 2 cents but I have yet to see a robot that has that much weight to burn unless you plan on having no manipulator.?

It does look nice and clean in inventor, great job on that.

The weight is 68 Lbs. That is right about where we want it.

[Conor Ryan]

Originally Posted by Tristan Lall

That looks interesting....

I mostly concur with sanddrag, except for that sprocket thing.

A couple of years ago, in 2003, Woburn used those same little sprockets, and promptly broke something like 13 #25 chains over the course of three events. Since there's no such thing as too much horsepower, the chain simply wasn't up to what we demanded of it. (It undergoes higher stresses as sprocket radius decreases.) ....

can't this all simply be solved by replacing the chain system with timing belts? Cars use them and put them under alot more stress than we ever will, no to mention are quite a bit litter than chains.

[sanddrag]

Originally Posted by cdr1122334455

can't this all simply be solved by replacing the chain system with timing belts?

No, If you break a chain, you are sure as heck going to break a timing belt, unless it slips first which would be almost as bad.

[Rod]

This is our drive train this year, it was designed in preseason and modified for this year's game. And yes we always use #35 chain in our drive trains.