Hi,
My team was wondering whether we could use Acrylite Acylic sheets on the robot. I found that Lexan and Acrylite were both thermoplastic sheets, but I was just posting here just to be sure.
Hi,
My team was wondering whether we could use Acrylite Acylic sheets on the robot. I found that Lexan and Acrylite were both thermoplastic sheets, but I was just posting here just to be sure.
I would never use acrylic on my robots. It’s impact resistance is just not up to the abuse. I don’t even allow it in the lab so it isn’t mistakenly used on the robot.
Stick with polycarbonate (lexan.)
Seconded. Lexan can defiantly take much more abuse than the acrylic sheets. Lexan can take a full bore robot collision with minor damage while acrylic can be easily cracked if you even try to drill into it.
Are you asking about FTC or FRC?
Stick with Lexan as everyone has suggested. Just a note in forming it. If you “heat soak” it for a while at below thermoform temp, you force out trapped vapor, and eliminate bubbling in the sheet that occurs if it is heated too fast. Experiment and it’s appearance will be maintained. ::safety::
I vote for polycarb, over acrylic. No matter where it’s used.
-Nick
FRC rules do not allow acrylic (Plexiglass ™). Stick with polycarbonate (Lexan ™) as it is impact resistant.
What rule (from last year) forbids it?)
Also, he isn’t in FRC, he is in FTC. Different rules.
Fixed.
For either program, acrylic should never be used, except for some really obscure exception or something. Always always use polycarbonate.
in FRC you could almost build your whole robot from polycarbonate…right?
I can think of more than a few roles where acrylic would be suitably strong, such as concealed ball hoppers/dividers or decal backing. Just never use it for anything structural or might otherwise take any shock loads.
They’re really close in price though, if I remember correctly, so wouldn’t you go for polycarbonate just because it won’t shatter on you?
We have had decal backing shattered by another robot. Shards of plastic in your robot can be bad.
Polycarb is generally twice as expensive as acrylic.
Funny that you say that, especially since you built a crab drive structure out of the stuff.
That’s just for prototyping a few plates that need to be milled out of poly that are harder to machine. The piece of acrylic is being used as a place holder.
Any “real” crab module will have zero acrylic in it, and I’m hoping my team’s replacing the temporarily acrylic parts of the prototype rather than waiting for competition to build one that’s strength testable…
Chris, why would we replace the acrylic, It was a prototype, we are done with it now, we are moving on.
BTW It is possible to build a robot completely out of Polycarbonate, thats what our team does.
Iv seen a few teams use bits of acrylic. Sometimes it works, other times… it shatters with disasterus results.
My advice, use Polycarb, It machines similar to wood or aluminum. You can router it like wood… or cold bend it like aluminum.
Also, if you use polycarbonate, heat bending is very difficult. We almost never heat bend ours just because there is such a small window between bending and melting, or (molecular decomposition). I recomend Cold bending but then you need a large brake.
I meant on a “real” module, if we build one for build season some year.
And here I thought it was totally polycarb… :rolleyes:
Actually, I think Acrylic is twice as clear as Polycarbonate or something like that.
I also would never use Acrylic anywhere on a robot. Drilling holes in the stuff results in cracking and you have to be really precise about bolting it. Polycarb just takes the slack. I do this demo where I clamp identical pieces of polycarbonate and acrylic to a table and whack each with a large hammer.
we use acrylic all the time for prototyping (only when they are directly on an aluminum plate of course). Acrylic can be laser cut, which makes it really quick to put an idea together. No matter what plastic you use, make sure you have extras of your plastic parts at the competition and an easy swap out to boot. We must have gone through 3 polycarbonate motor mounts last year