Advanced tools in the workshop (Mill, Lathe, Welder etc.)

[sanddrag]

We have a small round column Jet mill at our high school, and while it's certainly useful to have, it's not our go-to place to make something. I'd say we use it only about 10 times over a season (mostly for reworking), as most of our parts are made by sponsors, with larger, more advanced CNC equipment. Probably fewer than 10% of the parts we design/make are practical to do on a manual mill.

Having a lathe is very useful. I'd recommend a lathe as one of the first purchases. I've had this lathe at home for 4 years, and although it's small, I'd say it can do about 90% of the parts a typical FRC team would need. If your budget allows it, they say to buy the biggest machine you can afford.

For milling, there's a few teams who have the Tormach CNC mill, which seems to be a good value and size for an FRC team. To be serious about making anything by CNC, I would not consider a machine smaller than this. A lot of the parts on our robot could probably be made on a machine like this, but definitely not a machine smaller than this.

Even if you have a CNC mill, a manual mill can still be useful for one-off parts and simple parts. Not sure how the used machinery market is over there, but if you can find a Bridgeport, (or similar knee mill) that would be a good choice. I've also heard good things about the Industrial Hobbies mill.

For tooling, plan on spending up to half of whatever your machines cost, just for tooling. Vises, chucks, collets, end mills, blades, drill bits, boring bars, tool holders, etc really add up fast.

Do you have a good way to cut bar stock and plate? I think some good saws are essential. I would recommend at the least, a 14" band saw. And if you can get a horizontal band saw, and/or cold saw, and miter saw too, even better.

Do you have a good sturdy drill press? What about an arbor press and a set of broaches? I'd say an arbor press is a must-have item. And howabout a belt/disc sander too.

Having a TIG welder at school would be most useful. This year we spent a full week straight, of 7-hour days at a sponsor shop welding. And then another two 3-hour days at another sponsor shop.

[Joe Lambie]

Originally Posted by sanddrag

Do you have a good way to cut bar stock and plate? I think some good saws are essential. I would recommend at the least, a 14" band saw. And if you can get a horizontal band saw, and/or cold saw, and miter saw too, even better.

Do you have a good sturdy drill press? What about an arbor press and a set of broaches? I'd say an arbor press is a must-have item. And howabout a belt/disc sander too.

I second those thoughts as well. Didn't think about the importance of the basic tools to make the advanced tools more useful.

[Siri]

We only use a MIG welder and a large lathe on-site. (We also have a large manual mill, but logistics have kept us from using it.)

1) Cost
- Lathe: I'm pretty sure our lathe is older than I am and was probably a donation at some point, so unfortunately I can't help you there. We don't use it much, so upkeep isn't a big problem, but overall it's pretty robust. We haven't had to do anything for it in at least 5 years.
- Welder: Our Clarke Hot Shot Spool Gun MIG welder ran us around $300-$400 (US). Replacement spools are generally under $10, and depending on the contact tips get, you can get 10 for $15. Spools last us a while--maybe one per a build and a post- or pre-season. We go through tips pretty quickly though, especially if we're teaching new people (or don't know to replace the liner), maybe 1.5 packs per build season or so. The liner has to be replaced every once in a while (we just did our first after 1.5 years), but it's also less than $10. You can get argon refills for like $30, which you'll have to do ever several months depending on how much you use it. Our 2 auto-darken helmets ran around $50 each. Welding-grade gloves, if you don't have them, will probably run around $10 per pair. We went to Good Will and got a couple cotton button-downs for very cheap as well. You'll also want an angle grinder, which I think ran us not a whole lot under $100. I can add up some, but for us it's been a wonderful investment.

2) Difficulty for Students to Learn
- Lathe: Depends on who's teaching. We went several years without a mentor who really knew how to use it, so figuring that out safely understandably took a while. It's not particularly difficult to learn once your teacher really knows it, though.
- Welder: I was my team's first student welder (or any welder, at that). We had a few people floating around who knew something about it, but for the most part I had to figure it out for myself. I spent a good chunk of the pre-season practicing, but by build I cranked out the chassis pretty fast. It's certainly not an impossible skill to learn, but getting good (as with many skills) takes patience.

3) Safety
- Lathe: Sure, students can use it if they know and follow the safety precautions. We don't currently have a student that's proficient enough to do so without direct supervision, but we probably wouldn't let them anyway.
- Welder: Students can use it. On our team, no one uses it unsupervised.
In general, we don't want any team member using power tools without someone else present (though not necessarily in an over-the-shoulder role, just nearby).

4) There's certainly something to be said for teaching students advanced machining skills--I thoroughly enjoyed welding as a student. You can, however, certainly do without them. Many (albeit perhaps not most) teams fabricate winning robots without any at all. We spent our first four years without any significant welding, milling, or lathing, and even now limit the latter two to not more than a couple components per year. In fact, we won a regional Innovation in Control award last year without either.

Personally, I consider the essentials to be more a good drill press, vertical band saw or the like, and a belt sander, maybe a horizontal band, jig, and dremel. More importantly though, the most essential thing is being able to design for your capabilities. What those entail are at you and your wallet's discretion, but in the end bricolage is an important skill to have (just ask the Apollo 13 guys). That's what we aim to teach our students in terms of design and CAD, which at least to me is much more important than advanced machining. Yes, the sky's the limit, but I'm not buying you an Ares V--figure out how to get there.

[Tom Line]

I've had to correct students numerous times about the dangers of tools. The most common issues I see:

1. Girls (more rarely boys) with long hair that is not restrained. Or jewlery. There's a reason most shop folks don't wear it.

2. People using gloves. Good Lord, but I hope FIRST stops pushing gloves. They are a HORRIBLE idea around any tool that spins - dremel, drill, drill press, lathe, etc.

3. The usual safety glasses

4. People trying to hold on to parts on the drill press rather than using a vice

5. People using the bench grinder incorrectly (resting parts on the backstop and placing their fingers in the way of the pinch).

It's seriously enough to make me fight any inclusion of a serious machine-shop style tool in with the general build group. They need to be seperate and apart. They don't go along well with horseplay, and a small bump in a crowded space can spell disaster.

Right now we do pretty well with a drill press, grinder, vise, arbor press, drill, and saws-all in our build facility. Our mill facilities are at a mentor's house where we can tightly supervise who goes there (just a couple at once) and how it is used. Having big machine tools within reach of 30 kids is a disaster waiting to happen. The mill is new (to us) this year and has been a wonderful addition. We got it for $500US because it had a burnt out motor and then one of our more industrious mentors replaced the motor and did rehab work on it.