Drill Press/Miter Saw at competition

So recently my team purchased a drill press and sliding miter saw. Curious if we are able to bring them to comp.
Drill Press: https://www.homedepot.com/p/WEN-12-in-Variable-Speed-Drill-Press-4214/204994931
Miter: https://www.homedepot.com/p/RIDGID-15-Amp-12-in-Corded-Dual-Bevel-Sliding-Miter-Saw-with-70-Miter-Capacity-R4221/206726927?MERCH=REC--PIPHorizontal1_rr--205495709--206726927--N

We will have them mounted on these carts
https://www.homedepot.com/p/Husky-46-in-W-x-24-5-in-D-9-Drawer-Mobile-Workbench-with-Solid-Wood-Top-in-Black-H46MWC9XD/303101236

Some venues and/or overzealous volunteers will ban them, but they aren’t banned by FIRST at the top level.

The drill press is super defensible as a safe tool in pit, as kids would just do the same operation with a hand drill in a more dangerous fashion otherwise.

The Miter saw is a tougher sell likely. Far louder (and therefore scarier) so it’s pretty annoying, and it’s quite more dangerous if a part is thrown or blade breaks.

I’d recommend a portable bandsaw with static mount. You can use it as a small bandsaw on it’s mount, or you can go mobile with it and cut parts of the robot in place.

We use our drill press quite a bit for other teams at events, and the bandsaw a little less.

Machine Tools at Events
Small, bench-top machinery, with appropriate guards, is permitted in team pits. ‘Small’ machinery is machinery that can be easily lifted by one person.

Examples: Small band saws, drill presses, desktop CNC mills, and sanders.

When using tools in the pit, be sure to use them properly, in a safe and controlled manner. Unsafe operation, especially those that endanger others and your team, will be subject to scrutiny by the event staff and safety reviewers. Their findings may result in team warnings or event expulsion.

Please adhere to the following safety rules regarding pit safety and tool use:

E50. Tools that throw sparks are prohibited.

Examples: Electric welders, bench grinders and angle grinders.

E51. Tools that produce open flames are prohibited.

Examples: Gas welders and propane/MAPP gas torches.

E52. Floor standing power tools are prohibited.

Examples: Full-size drill presses, full-size band saws and full-size table saws.

E53. Grinding or painting in the pit is prohibited.

Designated grinding and painting areas are available to teams.

E54. Brazing/welding is prohibited at the team pits.

E55. Soldering may be done using an electric iron/gun only.

Drill press, no problem - I’ve seen a bunch of them in pits before. Same with bandsaws. A miter saw though… those can be pretty dangerous. I’ve seen people that have gotten stitches when one threw a piece they were cutting, and it’s not always easy to properly clamp pieces with it. There’s one in our shop (courtesy of the engineering teacher at the school, who uses it to cut wood 2x4’s for class), and the only thing we let students cut with it are pool noodles - cutting them at a 45 degree angle makes the corners look so much nicer. Even mentors won’t go near it with aluminum - that’s why we own 3 bandsaws.

I just think that they might say the drill press is too large. I see the problem with miter but the only bandsaw we currently have is floor mounted :frowning:

How much construction do you intend to do at each competition? What will you be moving your carts + power tools with? That will be a lot of weight.

At every event I have been to in the last 5-6 years, we were able to find at least one team that had a small, tabletop drill press and at least one other team that had some sort of small bandsaw that would happily allow us to use their equipment.

Personally, we use 973’s bandsaw at competition. 10/10 would recommend.
In all seriousness, little portable bandsaws are great. There are little green ones with stands that make great pit fixtures.

I have a fairly high risk tolerance… But miter saws would concern me in a pit environment. They are one the tools that will amputate a body part before you can react. With the number of people in the pits, many with no tool safety awareness, I would at the very least discuss the need for it in the pit.

A shout out to Georgia Power that sponsors a machine shop at all PCH district events. Since they have to ability to quickly cut anything that will fit on a FRC robot, it is easy to direct that kind of stuff to them making chop saws in the pit needed.

Well the goal would be minimum building at competition but never know what could happen. My school should be able to provide transport for us and everything we need fits in the carts except for scrap materials which we can pack in kickoff totes and transport in cars if needed.

so then for the drill press, is it not too big? It’s not liftable by one person but is securely mounted onto card.

If you can roll it in on a cart you should be fine. Bench top drill presses are common at events. Even if it takes two people to carry it in, once you get it in the pit you’ll be good to go.

I’ll add on that you should try to make everything roll into the event, it makes load-in and load-out so much faster. Even having a couple of moving dollies can make life much easier.

Our team runs a portable bandsaw in our pits, but no drill press. The venues around here commonly state, IIRC, that you can’t have any stationary tools that can spark (why only stationary tools and why they’re so concerned about sparks in a school gymnasium I have no clue), so the sealed motor for the portable Bandsaw is allowed (though they tried to give us guff about that too once) but almost all other table equipment wouldn’t be allowed in.

For size concerns it’s your 10’x10’x10’, if you can justify the space for your pit setup then it’s worth it. The bandsaw has more than earned it’s place in our pit.

tl;dr check your local venues to see if they’ll even let you use it in the first place.

95 has the same drill press. It’s fine. Nothing to write home about, but it does meet the criteria of being a drill press. It sees fairly light use, but every row of pits should have at least one available.

It also makes a passable arbor press, in a pinch.

I’ve never had an event that really said much about the team’s saw and drill press in pit (have had it the last 4 years) If anything, bring up FIRST rules.

Sometimes the venue itself does not allow it, but the rpc should tell you that in Email Blasts.

This is about where I stand on it as well. If you have nobody else in your pit and a clear area to use it I feel that would be acceptable, but NOT with more than 2 other people in the pit with you and even then ONLY if they place their undivided attention on the operator. Also I would not cut aluminum with it in the pit unless my neighbors were okay with the noise.

1678 does bring our small miter saw for cutting bumper plywood almost exclusively.

I don’t know how well equipped the machine shops are at the events you take part in. Perhaps you can find a skilled adult volunteer to work at the machine shop and bring the saw as part of your contribution to the common shop space? That way you have it available, in a safe, controlled fashion, but are also sharing it with anyone else who needs it. Win-win.

The drill press can also be a great addition to the common shop, or to your pit space. In fact, if you’ve planned far enough ahead and have the resources to bring a large drill press to the competition with you, then chances are that most of the time you’ll be using it to help out other teams, rather than drilling your own stuff.

Jason

Banning tools that throw sparks from workpieces during operation (welding machines, grinders, etc.) is definitely reasonable, but banning motors that can produce sparks seems ridiculously excessive to me. Also, portable band saws should not be considered stationary tools, even with a stand.

Mostly this. The biggest issues with a miter saw are probably the noise and the limited space in the pit. There should be no issue with the drill press.

Generally the little green ones are Ryobi, but craftsman, Porter cable and others make similar products.

We’ve brought a miter saw to a few events, including a few where we’ve won the Safety award. As mentioned before, we just made sure the operator and surrounding people had the safest possible working conditions while using it. Minimize pit traffic, notify pit neighbors of noise, and placed a barrier behind the machine.

It’s saved our butts on a couple of occasions, but it’s by no means a must-have. 99% of our pit miter saw jobs could have been accomplished with our portable band saw. You can find some really handy stands for them so you can also use them like a standard standing desktop bandsaw. It’s also handy to be able to run the bandsaw over to another team’s pit if they have a need for high speed cutting.

I personally would avoid a miter saw…I saw a 2in chunk of a hard plastic wheel that was being cut fly across the room and hit a student in the face 3 pits down. Band saws are great though!

Just for the record… doesn’t anyone use a hacksaw anymore? :rolleyes:

Jason