pic: West coast drive design

[AdamHeard]

Originally Posted by Hawiian Cadder

1/16 tubing is maybe a little thin, depending on the challenge and how heavy the robot is. The only teams i have seen using 1/16 tube also had 8 wheels, i don't know if the fact that 8 wheel drives tend to rock less violently had anything to do with it.


I am assuming that those are 4 inch wheels? If so how many stages are in your gearbox and what are the speeds.

looks pretty good. how much does it weigh?

1/8 wall tubing isn't that much stronger than 1/16, and at a massive weight penalty.

We predominately use 1/16" wall, and haven't suffered any frame failures the past few seasons on any of our robots (including practice and prototypes), and a lot get really beat up.

I know you're just trying to help, but it can mislead new people when you make such bold blanket statements with such confidence.

Bending is the primary failure mode for frames in FRC, and the bending is directly related to the area moment of inertia. If you do some research on on how this is calculated, you'll see the shape and cross section of the tubing is what grants strength, not the thickness.

[Hawiian Cadder]

Originally Posted by AdamHeard

1/8 wall tubing isn't that much stronger than 1/16, and at a massive weight penalty.

We predominately use 1/16" wall, and haven't suffered any frame failures the past few seasons on any of our robots (including practice and prototypes), and a lot get really beat up.

I know you're just trying to help, but it can mislead new people when you make such bold blanket statements with such confidence.

Bending is the primary failure mode for frames in FRC, and the bending is directly related to the area moment of inertia. If you do some research on on how this is calculated, you'll see the shape and cross section of the tubing is what grants strength, not the thickness.

Sorry if i have miss-lead anyone, it is not my intention.

as for the failure mode. i would expect that the failure mode for 1/8 inch tube would be bending, however i would expect the failure for 1/16 tube to be bending in or getting crushed. especially if the robot takes a hard hit from the side. i think 1/16 is a LOT easier to parallelogram too.

[AdamHeard]

Originally Posted by Hawiian Cadder

Sorry if i have miss-lead anyone, it is not my intention.

as for the failure mode. i would expect that the failure mode for 1/8 inch tube would be bending, however i would expect the failure for 1/16 tube to be bending in or getting crushed. especially if the robot takes a hard hit from the side. i think 1/16 is a LOT easier to parallelogram too.

Crushing from impact (and to a lesser extent parallelogramming) are really a result of poor design in this era of mandatory bumpers.

We've never crushed in our 1/16" wall with some brutal impacts while using bumpers. Without bumpers, the exposed corners often get smashed badly, but just the corner and it's purely a cosmetic issue. If we ran without bumpers, we'd beef it up. However, we know we're using bumpers and take advantage of it.

[Hawiian Cadder]

Originally Posted by AdamHeard

Crushing from impact (and to a lesser extent parallelogramming) are really a result of poor design in this era of mandatory bumpers.

We've never crushed in our 1/16" wall with some brutal impacts while using bumpers. Without bumpers, the exposed corners often get smashed badly, but just the corner and it's purely a cosmetic issue. If we ran without bumpers, we'd beef it up. However, we know we're using bumpers and take advantage of it.

I was thinking more about the bearing for the middle wheel and gearbox.
if you are using flange bearings (which you have to with walls that thing) and take a hard side hit, have you ever had problems with the flange punching into the tube wall?

adding a bearing block, with holes rather than slots, could help to minimize the risk of this happening.

[42!]

Originally Posted by Hawiian Cadder

I was thinking more about the bearing for the middle wheel and gearbox.
if you are using flange bearings (which you have to with walls that thing) and take a hard side hit, have you ever had problems with the flange punching into the tube wall?

adding a bearing block, with holes rather than slots, could help to minimize the risk of this happening.

Excellent point, I hadn't considered that. And yes the bearing are flanged 1/2 inch hex bearings from Andymark, on a different note the gearboxes as they are shown in this have no protective covering around the gears, I've seen a couple teams do this (notably 254) and it saves some weight on the gearbox, Does anyone know any of the advantages or disadvantages this has?

[Chris is me]

Can we not make claims about robot strength or material thickness based purely on guesswork please? Seriously, if you have no experience with the material, there's no shame in just not posting.

[AdamHeard]

Originally Posted by Chris is me

Can we not make claims about robot strength or material thickness based purely on guesswork please? Seriously, if you have no experience with the material, there's no shame in just not posting.

He's got a valid point, it just took him a few posts to get around to it.

Yes, we avoid 1/16" wall on our rails for drive that have bearing blocks, etc...

We're pretty sure it'd work, but for a base that's already around 30 lbs with motors, we take the few extra pounds that just two rails of 1/8" represent.

[Hawiian Cadder]

Originally Posted by AdamHeard

He's got a valid point, it just took him a few posts to get around to it.

Yes, we avoid 1/16" wall on our rails for drive that have bearing blocks, etc...

We're pretty sure it'd work, but for a base that's already around 30 lbs with motors, we take the few extra pounds that just two rails of 1/8" represent.

I was never suggesting making the cross-members 1/8, but 1/16 tends to bend around where you attach other stuff to it that will experience a lot of force. My fault, I should be more clear.

Originally Posted by Chris is me

Can we not make claims about robot strength or material thickness based purely on guesswork please? Seriously, if you have no experience with the material, there's no shame in just not posting.

If I don't have experience with what is being discussed in a thread I don't post anything. We used 1/16 and 1/8 tube this year on various parts of our robot, and the 1/8 turned out to be overkill on the members that did not have axles or the tower bolted on. In the members with axles or the tower bolts, we should have used more washers to prevent the tubes bending. The 1/16 was about perfect where we used it.