pic: Latest on wood-coast chassis

[Bertman]

Thanks,
Cutting the red oak is simple. Just a sharp carbide tipped blade and a table sawand a sharp chissel. The joints are mortise & tennon with some assembly techniques used in boat building. For glue I used gorilla glue because I wanted to see how it held up (pretty good so far), though plain carpenters glue in a good joint would be more than sufficient.

[sdcantrell56]

So based off of this chassis, if you decided you wanted to use a west-coast style drivetrain would you make it out of wood or would you stick with aluminum? Have you thought about laying one layer of fiberglass on it as well?

[Bertman]

That will be a team decision.

[sdcantrell56]

what is the general consensus right now. I guess my main question is given the choice of a west coast style drivetrain, is there any advantage in your mind that would sway your team from using a wood frame?

[Bertman]

Not in my mind, The first five years we competed in FIRST we had a wooden chassis with zero failures. But wood is not the only alternative we are looking at so our decision process is not yet complete, and I am not the whole team. I do believe that with a good design and good manufacturing techniques wood is an excellent choice for a chassis. Just my $.02.

[sdcantrell56]

Thank you bertman. Thats the answer I was looking for. Basically a summary of the performance in relation to a similarly designed metal chassis. I have a question about construction. With the resources we have it would be easier to use plywood such as a quality okoume board since we could laser cut it. Do you think layering 2 pieces of 1/2" thickness together to get a thick enough piece for a bearing would be strong enough and would the thing as a whole be strong enough. It would all be epoxied together with some screws, and possibly wrapped in fiberglass. I too am very interested in alternative materials. I might end up building a chassis to try in the coming weeks.

[colin340]

is that the Keyang motor or the Nippon-Denso that runs on the flywheel gear
it look like a Keyang to me but poeple have been calling it the window motor and to me that means Nippon-Denso

Looks like a Keyang, which would actually run the powered seats....