Machining (Machine x customer)

Technical
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Machining (Machine x customer)
Hello everyone. I would appreciate it if more experienced teams could help us with a question. Recently, we’ve been planning our trolley that will be used during the tournament (it’s actually already planned). However, we have decided that it will be made of aluminum, but we have not been able to find out how much it costs, not only the raw material that will be machined to assemble the cart, but also how much it costs to pay for the machining service itself. So, if you know how the process of creating a budget for custom machining works, or if there is a tool that can help us with this, it would be a great help. I’m including personal experiences of things that have gone right and wrong, from what we shouldn’t miss to the precautions we should take during negotiations. Thank you in advance!

Usinagem(Usinadora x cliente)
Olá a todos. Gostaria que equipes mais experientes pudessem nos ajudar com uma questão. Recentemente, estamos planejando nosso carrinho que será usado durante o torneio(na verdade já está planejado). Contudo, nós decidimos que ele será feito de alumínio, mas não conseguimos informações para mensurar quanto custa, não só a matéria prima que vai ser usinada para montar o carrinho, mas também quanto custa para pagar o serviço de usinagem em sí. Desse modo, peço que caso saibam como funciona o processo de criação do orçamento para uma usinagem personalizada, ou então se há uma ferramenta que pode nos ajudar com isso seria de grande ajuda. Nisso estou incluindo experiências pessoais de coisas que deram certo e errado, desde o que não podemos deixar faltar até cuidados que devemos ter durante negociações. Desde já, obrigado!!

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I have a few questions for you. (Translation below, in spoiler text. Tradução abaixo, em texto spoiler.)

  1. By “trolley” I assume you refer to the robot’s “cart”, used to move the robot around during competition.
  2. What machining and other fabrication items do you as a team have available? You may find it helpful to assess if some or all of the parts can be made by yourselves.
  3. What sort of aluminum shapes are you planning? Sheet, tube, angle, and so on. These may give slightly different answers. There may also be an “off-the-shelf” option.

The general rule of thumb for machining would be “material + time + overhead”. Material you can find out by contacting your local metal supply store*. That store may also have a list of local machine shops that might be interested (their customers, to be exact). Time will depend on the shop, and so will overhead. A rough guess would be Material * 4.

With that out of the way…
I would try uploading some of the parts to some online vendors, not with the intention of actually purchasing but to check pricing. This does have a very heavy U.S. bias, and I would say that some will not be able to ship to Brazil at all, while others will need to use a forwarding agency. I would also be willing to say that there’s a chance you can find it cheaper locally

For sheet, plate, and other laser parts:
https://www.fabworks.com/ (And in this case, please remember to note that you are a FRC team. @KennySandon and the rest of the crew will probably be able to provide some help.)

For tube and solid:
I prefer Xometry over Protolabs, for no particular reason. Neither ships directly to your area that I can tell, but I could be wrong.

*Google Translate says Portuguese, so I’m guessing you’re in Brazil, yes? That might make things a bit more difficult for me to find.

Portuguese, courtesy of Google Translate

Eu tenho algumas perguntas para você.

  1. Por “carrinho”, presumo que você se refira ao “carrinho” do robô, usado para movê-lo durante a competição.
  2. Quais itens de usinagem e outros itens de fabricação vocês, como equipe, têm disponíveis? Pode ser útil avaliar se algumas ou todas as peças podem ser feitas por você mesmo.
  3. Que tipo de formas de alumínio você está planejando? Folha, tubo, ângulo e assim por diante. Estes podem dar respostas ligeiramente diferentes. Também pode haver uma opção “pronta para uso”.

A regra geral para usinagem seria “material + tempo + despesas gerais”. Você pode descobrir o material entrando em contato com sua loja local de materiais de metal*. Essa loja também pode ter uma lista de oficinas mecânicas locais que possam estar interessadas (seus clientes, para ser exato). O tempo dependerá da loja, assim como as despesas gerais. Uma estimativa aproximada seria Material * 4.

Com isso fora do caminho…
Eu tentaria enviar algumas peças para alguns fornecedores on-line, não com a intenção de realmente comprar, mas para verificar os preços. Isso tem um viés muito forte dos EUA, e eu diria que alguns não conseguirão enviar para o Brasil, enquanto outros precisarão usar uma agência de despacho. Eu também estaria disposto a dizer que há uma chance de você encontrá-lo mais barato localmente.

Para chapas, placas e outras peças de laser:
https://www.fabworks.com/ (E neste caso, lembre-se de observar que você faz parte da equipe FRC. @KennySandon e o resto da equipe provavelmente poderão fornecer alguma ajuda.)

Para tubo e sólido:
Prefiro Xometry a Protolabs, sem nenhum motivo específico. Pelo que sei, nenhum dos dois envia diretamente para sua área, mas posso estar errado.

*O Google Tradutor diz português, então suponho que você esteja no Brasil, sim? Isso pode tornar as coisas um pouco mais difíceis de encontrar.

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Thank you so much for the answer. So, Yes, we are from Brazil. Actually we haven`t any type of machine or material that can be useful on contruction of our robot Cart. We was thinking to use different type of alumin pieces on our cart, because we will make since the tubes until the down plate. So our expective was give this decision for the experience of our machining. Talking about on-ine pieces we drawned all robot cart on like cad, and sketched some techiunnical drawnings of themost parte pf pieces. Our mainly idea is just contract someone to fabricate the pieces created by us and construct the cart by ourselfs.

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How do you construct your robot?

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As a rookie team, we haven’t built any robots yet. But we have established a flowchart that goes from sketches on paper, to creating prototypes and approving (or not) a mechanism, given the challenge the robot must overcome. We’re also updating as many things as possible before the season launches. We always try to replace materials that are usually attached to certain parts with cheaper materials that we can handle in our unit to a certain extent.

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For a rookie team I’d recommend looking at how you are going to build a robot. As designing to your capabilities is the most important part. It can be quite expensive to outsource every component. As far as a robot cart goes I’d recommend looking at furniture dollys you’d be surprised how good of a robot cart it can be.

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I’m going to have to back this up.

FRC is not a “outsource everything” competition (though some teams are able to do that to a degree). You’ll find that being able to build a lot of things yourself is going to be rather critical.

Do you have hand drills? Screwdrivers? A drill press? Hacksaw, chopsaw, or bandsaw? Hex keys?

Also, FRC is FAST. Probably one of the biggest reasons teams don’t use as much outsourcing of their build is the sheer speed of the season. 1-week leadtime is about as much as any team wants for their machined parts. Many machine shops will take two or three weeks.

With that being said, I would strongly suggest that you find your local metal supply store or stores. You’re looking for a few things that will likely require a meeting with the owner or manager.

  1. What is the general range of pricing for aluminum? (6061-T6 rectangular tube stock, primarily–but other grades and shapes may be useful too.)
  2. Would the business be interested in giving a discount or sponsorship? (Be prepared to explain why you’d like this/perks of sponsoring.)
  3. Does the business owner or manager know or know of local machine shops that might be interested in assisting your team?
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Outsourcing machining or fabrication work can be very problematic in FRC due to the length of time. With the exception of some sheet metal shops, I would plan on building your robot in house.

That said, I have outsourced a lot of fabrication for prototypes and individual pieces in my job, and I’d recommend just sending out your drawings or CAD to shops and asking for quotes. The fabrication shop will handle all material purchases. If you find a shop willing to work with you, they may also be able to alter your design to make in cheaper or faster for them to make.

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That’s exactly why our intention was, and still is, to sign a contract with a store or machining company that can supply us with the materials so that WE can assemble our own trolley. The problem in itself is bargaining and budgeting with machinists and stores, which we have no experience of. But the assembly is up to us.

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We even sent a CAD drawing to a store that worked with this, but because one of the robot’s parts needed welding to be attached to the trolley’s structure, the store didn’t accept the project. They only worked with screws.

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In most of FRC, manufacturing of parts is also done by the team from raw materials.

What tools related to that do you have? Hand drills? Drill presses? Hacksaw? Nothing at all?

As a note, for the store that didn’t do welding: That would generally mean that any parts sent to that store would require screws only. (Now, here in the U.S., that store would probably tell you–if asked–about another that did welding. Or subcontract the other store.) Design for the manufacturing capabilities you have available, not the ones you want–and as you get more familiar with the local machine shops you’ll know to send different parts to different shops.

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Thanks for the insight. In fact, a couple of days ago we made another CAD trolley entirely for screws to send back to that store. Unfortunately, we haven’t heard back yet.

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100% this, for our competition bots we have an all in house policy for non-cots parts as its ensure that if any mistakes are made (design, machining, or otherwise) or components are damaged, they can be rapidly corrected with the only lead time being the actual machine time. We generally prefer to in-house cots parts aswell for the same reasons when reasonable. That said, outsourcing still has its benefits, particularly given parts too complex or time consuming to manufacture in-house.

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