NanoTube Chassis

I was looking on andy mark and i saw the nano tube chassis…i was wondering what are other peoples thoughts about them?

and I was wondering how someone would go about putting bumpers around the wheels and on the nano tube Chassis?

i miss the old days when bumpers were recommended but not required. the drive train configurations were vastly creative and dimorphic. Unfortunately for you you would have to build some kind of mount bracket that can support a bumper out beyond the wheels

It’s not that hard. Just put some blocks no more than every 8 inches apart, between the wheels, and you’re fine.

On AndyMark.com it says this:

Almost New Stuff (coming soon)

C-Channel mount brackets for Toughbox Nano Tube (for mounting a outer frame)
31" Nano Tube Drive Bases.

You could mount the bumpers on the outer frame.

We have a modified design of the nanotubes as our chassis. (We took the CAD file from AndyMark’s website and made it longer, got rid of some of the holes, and had it manufactured by one of our sponsors, Vertec Tool, inc.) Personally, as a member of team 2996’s drive team, I love the nano tubes. We used 6" Mecanum wheels with it, and made the gear ratio the same as our gear ratio last year when we used 8" Mecanum :slight_smile:

Anyways, attaching the bumpers was a problem that took a lot of designing and redesigning to make possible. We ended up having supports that were perpendicular to the nanotubes that extended past the tubes to hold the bumpers. The best picture I could find to show that is this picture on the manipulator team’s blog…the two metal angled aluminum things sticking past the yellow wood is what we attached it to. That and then the bottom was supported by that yellow plywood that was our electronics board!

We put the c-channel on the nanotubes like so and are very happy with the results.

We have a design similar to AndyMark’s nanotube. We lengthened the rails to 35 inches and capped them with 3x1 inch rectangular aluminum tubing 27 inches long. We have two side pieces of 3x1 tubing that are 35 inches long that attach to these forming a rectangle 27x37. The bumpers are bolted to these. We use 6" omni wheels on the corner with placation wheels in the center with a 1/16" drop. With the built in gearing we have a 12.7:1 drive ratio. The chassis is ‘nuke proof’ and turns on a dime.

the way that our cantilevered prototype supports the bumpers is cross sections of 33.125 tube, an inch wide, riveted to the frame, it adds less than a pound for the whole frame.