Ok, so I have noticed that many world class teams use sheetmetal for their robot design, from chassis to manipulators. From the CAD I have looked at, it appears that the pieces are cnc’d then bent somehow. I am curious about how you would cad out something like that. I am using solidworks right now and I know how to use the sheetmetal tool, at least the basics. How do you make all the parts line up? Do you make a model out of blocks and then only turn certain parts into sheetmetal? also how are the tabs done? for the teams that are doing this, what tool do you use to bend the metal? also what gauge? From the cad it seems to be about 13 gauge but I could be wrong.
Your best bet is going to be to search these forums and youtube for examples.
Here is a good thread to start with
https://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/showthread.php?t=119405&highlight=sheetmetal
Here is a great video that will get you started.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LPeA94gEtp0
I would highly recommend you go through team 1114’s solidworks tutorial videos.
They are a really good place to start with CAD in general but also cover some specific sheet metal tools.
Greg
thanks greg those vids are pretty usefull. I will really need to rethink the way i build the bots though because currently we use 1x1 stock and gussets for most things.
that robo wranglers video also makes me really envious of all those resources they have access too