Help with choosing parts for a first robot, please.

[Max]

I've found HDPE can kinda hold a thread, I tend to just drill the appropriate tapping size hole then wind the bolt in with a cordless drill and it cuts it own thread that will last a fairly long time as long as it is not in full combat.
Also a lot of people just use ordinary wood screws to hold the panels together and as long as they are not remove and put back in too many times they shoudo hood just fine.

[maddox10]

HDPE doesn't hold thread.
Ranglebox is just easy. Other solution is to use L angle and nut and bolt.

I have seen other solutions , like IKEA Tnuts or other fibreboard/MDF connection methodes.

[dotDominic]

Right, so I'll use a combination of M6 Ranglebox and bolts with barrel nuts.

Thanks very much for the responses!

[Flag Captured]

Both Ellis and Sam (Tormenta 2/Rango, Hatchet respectively) use barrel nuts in HDPE and swear by them. If you install them right, they're excellently strong! And as for the Ranglebox threaded rod, again used right it's really nice stuff. Think it held Tormenta 3 together this year, and I think Mario's used it on (Nebelwerfer?) to nice effect. Really handy!

[Ellis]

Everything except the wedge on Tormenta 3 is held together with M6 Threaded Bar and barrelnuts.

[mrsam]

Hatchet was all m6 barrel nuts in 20mm hdpe this year and it all held up amazingly well, put it this way, it fought 8 spinners at this years world championships and it's still in one piece.

[Rapidrory]

It did also have a large chunk of hardox on the front which may have helped :P but yeah it can work pretty well...

[dotDominic]

Perfect, thanks very much!

[dotDominic]

Ok, so, finally managed to get come CAD stuff done. Took much longer than it should've but here's some pictures of what I intend to build. The design is pretty basic, and I hope you'll excuse the crudeness of the model as I haven't really done anything like this before.

[EDIT] - The photos should be viewable here:
https://www.flickr.com/photos/131745614@N05


The size of the robot is 40cm Width, 36cm Length, 10 cm Height (Including Wheels).

Probably could be more compact but I'm not really sure how much space the wires, removable link, fuse, Battery mounts or ESC mounts are going to take up. I will probably need some sorta spacer between the wheels and the bulkheads but I'm not sure how thick that'll need to be yet, so I've not put it in the diagram. So yeah, if anyone has any opinions or has noticed any major problems with this design I'd really appreciate the responses, thanks!
Should be able to finally get the flippin' drill chucks off this afternoon, too!

[Garfie489]

Just to say i cant see any of the attachments, not sure if thats a problem with the site.

If you have links to the pics, you can use [img] [/img] aswell - just put the link in the middle, can even be a facebook picture link such as below for example

Link: https://fbcdn-sphotos-h-a.akamaihd.n...81220408_o.jpg

[img] https://fbcdn-sphotos-h-a.akamaihd.n...81220408_o.jpg [/img]

(Without spaces)