Shop Tools, Hand Tools, HELP?

[invertedBottles]

Originally Posted by kellymc

LOTS OF INFO TAKEN OUT

If you have any other questions or want some additional information send me a PM and we can talk, if you want to come see our tooling, we meet on Wed/Fridays and Saturdays getting ready for cal games.

Kelly
Mentor 766 MA Bears[/color]

That's a generous offer that I'd love to take you up on, but we probably won't be able to make it out anytime soon. We are also going to be at CalGames, we'll see you there. I love all the info, if I have any other questions I know who to ask for an answer! One things, regarding cutting tools, is there any one of the tools we could purchase that could perform essentially the same as other tools? Like EricH said on the previous page, a sliding miter saw can perform some of the bandsaw functions? It would not only save us space but time having to train members on only one tool vs two.

With any new tools, we will get experienced mentors or ask other teams to come out and teach us, or at least myself. It is my responsibility to see that all the tools are properly operated, so I will be willing to pass on the training. Having another student lose their fingers would be worse for me then losing one of my own!

The only problem we have with Craigslist and classifieds is the ads go up quickly, and require items to be picked up, sometimes quite far away. With out limited number of mentors, we can't really go anywhere on short notice. Plus, it's easier to point at a new product for a sponsor to purchas. We do not know if they are willing to provide direct funding yet.

Jackson and rondinol, good info. Will be kept in mind!

Originally Posted by Cory

You really don't need a sliding miter saw. We have this. $200 and it works great. High quality. Throw a nice carbide tipped blade on there and you can easily cut aluminum tube (absolutely do NOT cut solid/ferrous metal with any miter saw).

Thanks Cory, you have some really informational points! I've been reading that Makitas have the most accurate cuts in miter saws, but it seems you do think the Rigid works great. When cutting with the miter, what kind of clamps or other tools do you use to hold the material down? Do you have it on a dedicated stand, or some kind of table/bench/counter?

[Akash Rastogi]

According to google maps, San Francisco State University is very close to your high school, as is the City College of San Francisco. Those two will probably end up being two of the best resources you could possible establish in terms of machining capabilities and mentoring. Both are within two miles of Lowell HS.

Be sure to check both out very soon.

[Cory]

Originally Posted by invertedBottles

That's a generous offer that I'd love to take you up on, but we probably won't be able to make it out anytime soon. We are also going to be at CalGames, we'll see you there. I love all the info, if I have any other questions I know who to ask for an answer! One things, regarding cutting tools, is there any one of the tools we could purchase that could perform essentially the same as other tools? Like EricH said on the previous page, a sliding miter saw can perform some of the bandsaw functions? It would not only save us space but time having to train members on only one tool vs two.

With any new tools, we will get experienced mentors or ask other teams to come out and teach us, or at least myself. It is my responsibility to see that all the tools are properly operated, so I will be willing to pass on the training. Having another student lose their fingers would be worse for me then losing one of my own!

The only problem we have with Craigslist and classifieds is the ads go up quickly, and require items to be picked up, sometimes quite far away. With out limited number of mentors, we can't really go anywhere on short notice. Plus, it's easier to point at a new product for a sponsor to purchas. We do not know if they are willing to provide direct funding yet.

Jackson and rondinol, good info. Will be kept in mind!



Thanks Cory, you have some really informational points! I've been reading that Makitas have the most accurate cuts in miter saws, but it seems you do think the Rigid works great. When cutting with the miter, what kind of clamps or other tools do you use to hold the material down? Do you have it on a dedicated stand, or some kind of table/bench/counter?

I have no experience with Makita saws, so I cannot recommend it over a Makita, but our experience with Ridgid products in general has been very good.

In principle I am against paying $600 for a sliding compound miter saw. It's just not that much more useful than a regular miter saw, for FRC purposes. If you were framing up a house every day of the year and required the versatility and the durability of a professional grade tool it would be the right choice...but that isn't what we're doing in FRC.

I don't really see one as a replacement for a bandsaw or table saw. You can cut a 15"x15" square with a 12" sliding miter saw. I guess that's better than if it wasn't sliding, but it's nowhere near a real table saw and I'm not sure in what way it would be equivalent to a vertical bandsaw, as they are primarily used for contouring.

You should be able to find a fairly decent vertical bandsaw for a couple hundred dollars. With good blades and proper care it should cut aluminum up to 1/4" thick with no problem (inevitably people will cut steel with it, or shove aluminum through at about a zillion miles an hour and ruin your brand new blades though).


We use the clamp that came with the saw. We have a beat up folding table that we will often bolt the saw to and then wood screw down a stop to ensure repeatable length cuts for tubing that gets welded without being further processed on the mill. Otherwise we just use it on the ground.

[F22Rapture]

Originally Posted by EricH

There is one tool that I don't see on your list that could be very useful, if light duty. That is a 3D printer. There are some desktop models in the $2K range; they build plastic parts. If you can do CAD, they can make life a lot easier on smaller parts--and they can do both round and squareish parts. The BeachBots put some parts made by one we got from http://thefutureis3d.com/ on their robot last year, and those parts ain't failed yet. (Also note that this is something that could go into the classroom portion--it doesn't spit chips everywhere.)

It might be too much for most teams to buy one, but I'd like to point out that a lot of local community colleges have one, often much larger and more expensive higher-quality ones. Our local CC has one which we will hopefully have access to this year, and it's far higher quality than what we could buy on our own.

[SarahBeth]

Just one other thing I just thought of...

do you have a local technical school near you? You might be able to partner with them and they might be willing to help you guys out with machining of parts and welding. This is where you might also find access to a nice printer or computers.

F22Rapture bringing up community colleges made me think about it.

[George C]

Originally Posted by F22Rapture

It might be too much for most teams to buy one, but I'd like to point out that a lot of local community colleges have one, often much larger and more expensive higher-quality ones. Our local CC has one which we will hopefully have access to this year, and it's far higher quality than what we could buy on our own.

A great off-season activity is to build your own. http://www.reprap.org/wiki/RepRap We're in the process of building our 2nd. It costs about $600 to build one from scratch using linear bearings. The one we have draws a crowd at events. Once you have one, you can use it to print parts for more.

[MrForbes]

There's a pretty nice 3d printer in our school's Engineering classroom...we've had Engineering students on the robot team for a few years...and we have yet to figure out a robot part that we could print with it. I would look at other things to spend money on.

It sounds like you need put in some "shop class" time before you get too far along buying tools. Knowing how to use them is vital.

[EricH]

Originally Posted by squirrel

There's a pretty nice 3d printer in our school's Engineering classroom...we've had Engineering students on the robot team for a few years...and we have yet to figure out a robot part that we could print with it. I would look at other things to spend money on.

Saw this and had to comment: Skyhook's intake roller had a pair of hubs that came off a 3D printer, complete with the "standard" 6-hole bolt pattern. And the box containing Skyhook's IMU came off the same printer. And at that point, we'd had the printer about a month, maybe 2. When I was in college, we got some plugs for a robot's frame built on their high-quality one.

[rm -rf /]

If you're stuck for space and/or cash, you might consider a combo mill/lathe/drill. It won't do any of these tasks as well as the individual tools might, and it's small (but so, relatively, are the robots), but it wouldn't take up too much space and would at least provide you these capabilities at a lower cost than the individual machines.

I think that there are other teams who use one of these as (one of?) their primary machine.

A quick google search ("combo lathe mill") will show you a number. From what I've read, there's basically a price/quality relationship. The more you pay the better the tool, so, if you go this route, buy the best you can afford.

[George C]

If you're looking for larger machines, try industrial auctions. We picked up a Bridgeport in good condition for ~$750 including vice and a set of R8 collets. Just watch your voltages as many industrial machines are 600V. To meet school regualtions, we have to install a magnetic swtich as well and fix up the guarding.

[Aroki]

Originally Posted by George C

If you're looking for larger machines, try industrial auctions. We picked up a Bridgeport in good condition for ~$750 including vice and a set of R8 collets. Just watch your voltages as many industrial machines are 600V. To meet school regualtions, we have to install a magnetic swtich as well and fix up the guarding.

We have a used industrial machine store near us and got ourselves a Bridgeport for about that much, but we may be looking into converting it to cnc for about $4,000

[Nemo]

A low cost metal bending brake plus an inexpensive shear would be worth considering if you have a table to mount them on. Bent sheet parts are useful in lots of places. You can get both at Harbor Freight for a combined $200.

[ratdude747]

Originally Posted by squirrel

It sounds like you need put in some "shop class" time before you get too far along buying tools. Knowing how to use them is vital.

Agreed. A tool you don't know how to use is functionally useless.

[Andy A.]

Originally Posted by ratdude747

Agreed. A tool you don't know how to use is functionally useless.

At best. Just as often it's a liability to your work or your safety.

[JJackson]

Many products from RIGID come with lifetime warranty on everything including batteries....
I'm not sure if this has been added but a good tap and die set is something great to have around