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#1
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Re: Fabricating Aluminum Sprockets
Talk to RAGE. Their 2005 bot had a massive #35 er that they did. I think they milled it though. As far as heat treat goes, I would suggest finding a sponsor to do it. That stuff can get difficult really fast.
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#2
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Re: Fabricating Aluminum Sprockets
1114 has been machining our own aluminum sprockets for about a year now. We use a bench top CNC machine(like those found in many high schools) and a plain endmill. 1/8th for #25 and 3/16 for #35 sprockets.
We usually just use 6061 aluminum plate. Again 1/8th thick for #25 and 3/16's for #35 sprockets. We've never bothered heat treating them After the milling is done, we put a slight chamfer on the teeth in the lathe. And a little deburing later and your done. One of the really nice things of making your own sprockets is that you can put your own lightening pattern and bolt pattern in, and as long as it can all be completed without removing the piece, you don't need to worry about re-zeroing the machine. Everything comes out nice and concentric. Due to the relatively small size of the milling machine we use, the biggest sprocket we can make is about 6.5" in diameter. That works out to something like 80 teeth for #25 or 53 teeth for #35. We actually cut some out this afternoon for an off-season project we're working on. I've attached a jpeg of the inventor drawing. I don't have a descent camera with me, or I would post an actual photo of the finished product. It was 40 tooth #25. |
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#3
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Re: Fabricating Aluminum Sprockets
Unless your plasma cutter is CNC, I doubt it would work very well.
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#4
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Re: Fabricating Aluminum Sprockets
Quote:
Edited to add: We also have a CNC mill and CNC lathe, but we're interested in doing this only if we can do it quickly. Milling anything takes too long for my MTV-generation attention span. ![]() Last edited by Madison : 09-09-2006 at 22:58. |
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#5
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Re: Fabricating Aluminum Sprockets
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#6
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Re: Fabricating Aluminum Sprockets
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We're just really excited about the potential to speed the process of cutting plate along. There are a lot of things we'd have like to have done last season, but we skimped on a lot because of how long it took to set up and run the mill. |
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#7
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Re: Fabricating Aluminum Sprockets
For aluminum, it's important to have a really good cutter on your table. I assume it's PlasmaCam, or a knockoff. Our lab got one last year, and I was very excited to be able to cut out parts in house. However, this was not the case because the cutter was not of excellent quality, and while cutting Al, it just melted out of the cut path. A shop in town actually uses a special gas or gas mixture to facilitate plasma cut on aluminum.
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#8
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Re: Fabricating Aluminum Sprockets
Hah I wish I got into plasma cutting. But I think it would be a really difficult job to remove all of the melted aluminum inside the teeth. I'd perfer CNC Machining something of that sort. Anyways if you do decide to CNC machine the sprockets thennn i'll be right there awaiting to help
Good luck ![]() |
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#9
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Re: Fabricating Aluminum Sprockets
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#10
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Re: Fabricating Aluminum Sprockets
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and i went to the master cam booth and started talking to him i said say your team # i'll tell you your name he said 273 which i didn't know off the top of my head i then asked his team name he said rage i then corrected him of his actual team # of 173 and started describing there robot in very close detail. but he was there lead cnc guy i think i also saw Dan Larochelle and several of 40's vex robots and a small cnc mill whirring away and talked with him. its amazing what a small world this is and is there a specific program for easily making #25 sprockets on a cnc mill because i need some for an offseason project and have plenty of time |
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#11
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Re: Fabricating Aluminum Sprockets
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I think you might want to download this shareware program called "Machinists Mate" Ver. 4.1 from www.wadeproco.com ...Along with other machining wizards you will see an icon for a sprocket DXF generator in there that works pretty well! It will generate one tooth valley that you can use to create your toolpath either by copy and rotate in CAD or a sub-routine that will achieve the same thing on your CNC mill. I am glad this question came up, I have always had my CAD method for generating sprocket cutting programs but this calculator will be much faster! |
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