Acrylic Gearbox Sideplates

[tennispro9911]

I know 254/968 used delrin. I was utterly amazed at their gearboxes a year ago at champs during my rookie season. I am still utterly impressed although (slightly) less incredulous. Lexan is a material our team has used a lot. In my opinion, its a great material and its never cracked for us, which is great. We've bent .25" thick pieces back to touch the other end of the 3'ish long piece and it just shot back into form.

[Dick Linn]

Maybe you could use some of this surplus MIC-6 aluminum jig plate in 5/16" or 3/8". The price is right: http://www.sandsmachine.com/alumweb.htm

The deal with jig plate is that it doesn't do funny things like warp like crazy when you machine it - it is very stable compared to regular plate.

Someone near Roseville, CA ought to get S&S Machine as a sponsor!

[MrForbes]

Originally Posted by tennispro9911

This may or may not be the right place for this question, but for Transmissions, what are people's opinions on the pros of cons of Polycarbonate vs Delrin vs Aluminum.

Steel is best!

[Dick Linn]

Actually, cast iron is probably better for transmission casings. Doesn't do much for gas mileage, though.

[NickE]

from what i've seen, delrin works fine if you keep it solid (no pocketing)

if its just a solid sheet with only necessary holes cut out, it should work fine

[ajlapp]

I definitely wouldn't recommend acrylic for most robot applications, but I did recently have the chance to work with both cast and extruded acrylic.

I found the cast acrylic to be closer in machinability and performance to polycarb and it is significantly cheaper.

A call to you local plastics supplier can offer lots of insight and alert you to materials that you may not know about.

My local supplier here in Michigan is Total Plastics.