Carbon Fiber

[falconmaster]

Originally Posted by Ben Piecuch

Team 842 has used fiberglass for their robot chassis for several years now. It's thick and beefy fiberglass, but it seems to hold up very well. I would assume that Carbon Fiber frame rails would be quite similar in robustness.

From my experiences in designing around Carbon Fiber, the connections and interfaces with other components are always the toughest challenges. CF is so strong and can handle so much load, that the connections tend to be bigger and heavier than the metal component the CF replaced.

I love CF, as two of my road bicycles can prove. But I'm not quite sure the advantages it provides in the FIRST world outweigh its difficultly in use, and the obvious time constraint to design around it. YMMV, best of luck.

BEN

Yes its true, we have been using it very great success for years.

http://www.phxhs.k12.az.us/education...88&pagecat=136

Team 842 , the material is from www.creativepultrusions.com

We have never broken our fiberglass frame.

[Gdeaver]

We have use FRP pultrusuions for our arm before. Worked out very well. As mentioned attachment points require different techniques than metal. Clamp thing onto a tube. We used carbon cloth to reinforce birch plywood. A coupler for a motor was made out of chopped carbon fiber and epoxy. You may have a problem with cost. The market price for carbon cloth is way up their. Also beware that certain prepeg resins are toxic and I wouldn't want to use them around students. Amine allergies are enough to worry about. Putting some fiber in your robot can be a good thing.