pic: new shoes

[AdamHeard]

Originally Posted by Oblarg

I think it depends on what you mean by "meaningful quantity." If you're putting together a tube-and-gusset chassis, it's not all that difficult to do your riveting by hand. It's still faster than bolting the assembly together.

If you're doing sheet metal, I can see how it would be a real pain to have to do all your rivets manually.

We do tube and gusset for pretty much every system. We did't have a pneumatic riveter until 2011, and did hand until then.

It's certainly meaningful quantity, and it's certainly worth it. The time saved is huge.

I like to think of labor in terms of minimum wage. If the cost of a tool saves enough labor that it's "making" more than minimum wage, it's worth it (as our kids make well above minimum wage when they're out fundraising). The flipside is true too... any fabrication we do that "saves" less than minimum wage is a bad decision, and should be a COTS item.

Too many teams work themselves for below minimum wage.

[Oblarg]

Originally Posted by AdamHeard

We do tube and gusset for pretty much every system. We did't have a pneumatic riveter until 2011, and did hand until then.

It's certainly meaningful quantity, and it's certainly worth it. The time saved is huge.

I like to think of labor in terms of minimum wage. If the cost of a tool saves enough labor that it's "making" more than minimum wage, it's worth it (as our kids make well above minimum wage when they're out fundraising). The flipside is true too... any fabrication we do that "saves" less than minimum wage is a bad decision, and should be a COTS item.

Too many teams work themselves for below minimum wage.

Unfortunately, the reality for many teams is that time spent is not some limitlessly fungible resource where any time saved in manufacturing can be converted to money through fundraising efforts.

[AdamHeard]

Originally Posted by Oblarg

Unfortunately, the reality for many teams is that time spent is not some limitlessly fungible resource where any time saved in manufacturing can be converted to money through fundraising efforts.

Is there a law/rule against fundraising for you locally?

[Oblarg]

Originally Posted by AdamHeard

Is there a law/rule against fundraising for you locally?

No, but there are practical considerations in how much time we can realistically motivate our students to spend on fundraising, how much money that fundraising will actually bring in, and when it is feasible to do fundraising activities (time saved during our twice-weekly preseason meetings is not equivalent to time spent at events outside of those meetings).

If we save some amount of time on our preseason drive chassis (say, an hour or two) by having a pneumatic riveter, there is really no feasible way we can readily turn that hour or two into money given the constraints of our team structure.

There are a lot of assumptions implicit in the utility calculation you've outlined. Those assumptions are valid in some contexts, but certainly not universally.

[Chris is me]

We bought the Harbor Freight riveter right before our 2014 season to save us time and energy... and broke it almost immediately. We ended up just getting another hand riveter and using two of those. Ate up a LOT of time in build season though - with the amount of rivets in the claw we probably consumed more than 1 build meeting total in extra time wasted.

That said, hand riveters get the job done just fine. With practice we could do things like change claw parts (drilling out at least 12-16 rivets and replacing them) in just a few minutes.

[75vs1885]

I was trying it yesterday and it wasn't working well at all, however out hose was leaking a lot so i think that was the direct cause. Once we fix/ replace the hose we can see how it works!

[JesseK]

Stephen, were you using the small yellow compressor directly or hooking it up to the wall-mounted air line? Send an email to Drake/Laverty to get a replacement host once you find the leak.

I'm not sure it's worth it to bring a compressor tank & air rivet gun to competition just for tread rivets, so we'll have to see what else we can rivet this season if the air rivet gun works so well we decide to go that route.

[75vs1885]

Originally Posted by JesseK

Stephen, were you using the small yellow compressor directly or hooking it up to the wall-mounted air line? Send an email to Drake/Laverty to get a replacement host once you find the leak.

I'm not sure it's worth it to bring a compressor tank & air rivet gun to competition just for tread rivets, so we'll have to see what else we can rivet this season if the air rivet gun works so well we decide to go that route.

The small yellow one. As for competition I don't even think we can bring a compressor, if I recall properly then I saw a rule against it.

[orangemoore]

Originally Posted by 75vs1885

The small yellow one. As for competition I don't even think we can bring a compressor, if I recall properly then I saw a rule against it.

Bringing a compressor to competition is complicated. It is a black hole of debate.

[cgmv123]

Originally Posted by orangemoore

Bringing a compressor to competition is complicated. It is a black hole of debate.

There shouldn't be as much debate as there is; all the inspectors say "don't bring a non-robot compressor".

EDIT: *Ducks*

[Gregor]

Originally Posted by cgmv123

There shouldn't be as much debate as there is; all the inspectors say "don't bring a non-robot compressor".

Care to cite a rule?

[cgmv123]

Originally Posted by Gregor

Care to cite a rule?

These aren't rules, but any rules I can cite won't apply next year anyway:

http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/sh...1&postcount=62
http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/sh...1&postcount=79
http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/sh...0&postcount=96
http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/sh...&postcount=118
http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/sh...&postcount=121
http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/sh...&postcount=123
http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/sh...20&postcount=4
http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/sh...3&postcount=15

[Gregor]

Originally Posted by cgmv123

These aren't rules, but any rules I can cite won't apply next year anyway:

http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/sh...1&postcount=62
http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/sh...1&postcount=79
http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/sh...0&postcount=96
http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/sh...&postcount=118
http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/sh...&postcount=121
http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/sh...&postcount=123
http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/sh...20&postcount=4
http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/sh...3&postcount=15

Right, they're not absolutely disallowed. A blanket statement saying "all inspectors" will ask you to remove a shop compressor isn't true. Some events will allow them, some will not.

And some events will not allow them because teams MIGHT use them to fill up their air tanks???

[mman1506]

After some testing we found a large hand riveter (the style typically used for large rivets) worked better for putting nitrile on aluminium wheels than a air riveter. It allowed us to put a lot more pressure on the rivet when setting it compressing the tread around the rivet to create a secure attachment.

[Andrew Schreiber]

Originally Posted by cgmv123

There shouldn't be as much debate as there is; all the inspectors say "don't bring a non-robot compressor".

EDIT: *Ducks*

This is absolutely incorrect. There was NOT a rule in the books to forbid it. They can ask you not to run your shop compressor due to power concerns and you are absolutely not allowed to fill up your robot tanks from it. But there is NOT a rule saying it cannot be in the pits.