Everyone is looking to stretch a budget, so we might as well have a shared lookout for robot-relevant deals.
Harbor Freight struck first blood with me:
BAUER 4 in. x 36 in. Belt and 6 in. Disc Sander – back to $99 with coupon. We’ve had the same one in the 1293 shop for a couple years now, and it’s just right for knocking edges back into shape.
Hercules and Bauer deals – Both lines have deals on batteries and a “buy a battery and charger, get this select tool free”. I’ve got some Bauer stuff at home, and it’s thoroughly respectable–sort of on the same lines as a Ryobi. Hercules is their top-shelf stuff, with particularly good bang for the buck compared to the bigger tool brands. Which suits your needs best is up to you, but the thought of a cordless portaband for $100 is right tempting.
Not strictly Black Friday, but I consider it a deal:
I got one of these USB ring lights years ago, and they’re sort of sneaky good for throwing light on a task since you can clamp them wherever. Great for fine assembly, soldering, or just working on something at the workbench. Especially in the pits when the lighting is…not great.
We have been having continuing issues with cheap collets developing runout and bits slipping, so we’ve been slowly upgrading with $25 Amana collets. So yeah I was psyched when I found this. From what I read they should be a few steps up from the cheap collets.
They’re both great deals, and great printers. The P1S is double the build plate area for more than double the price. IE, if you want throughput the Mini is the play, if you want the ability to make big parts get the P1S.
I do think teams need to have at least one 255mm-class printer in the fleet. Being able to print stuff on the scale of the Kitbot shooter plates while waiting on an order was clutch last year. For folks printing swerve treads, that’s getting a whole robot’s worth in one print versus tying up four Mini-class printers. (Which is fine if you have a whole wall of them, but if you’re starting out you probably don’t.)
Less Black Friday and more “ballin’ on a budget”, find someone with an AmEx Business Platinum card (has to be the business one) and see if they’ve used the $200 semi-annual Dell credit. I’ve read data points that the refurbished site triggers the credit too, and they’ve got some options that are particularly interesting compared to stuff like the out-of-stock $229 Inspiron price leader they’re slinging on the main site. (If not for that credit that must be used at Dell, I’d be back on eBay looking at used Latitudes. Dell is proud of their refurbishment process.)
Thanks to my dad for notifying my about Polymaker’s sitewide 30% off Black Friday sale. They make a variety of 3D printing filaments that, in my experience, are nice to work with and of good quality. I’ve used their 95A TPU, PolyMax polycarbonate and PA6-GF25 to satisfactory results, e.g. in printed swerve wheels.
