hdpe armour thickness

what would be the optimum thinkness of hdpe on a featherweight rambot. taking into account, weight, price and protection

10-20mm

go as thick as you have the weight/cash for

I'm running 20mm HDPE frame with 5mm aluminium lids. Seems to work fine!

We had 13mm HDPE on Bitza and LH (after three rounds mind) managed to crack it, as well as put some good 5mm deep gouges in it.

Explosion on the other hand has very thin HDPE which makes in malleable, meaning it takes hits very well, but that it also down to their Hardox frame its built on.

So remember how you mount it is also important, and thickness isn't everything with HDPE as it can always crack.

Building mine out of 15mm along with 5mm top and bottom

Mine is 6mm armour, lid and base. Bulkheads are 15-20mm RG1000 and Nylon sometimes double up to 35mm. 6mm did cut big cuts out of it when I fought Buzzbar, but it cost £8 to replace/repair it all with lots left over.

I'm using 8mm for the base and lid on my feather but I'm no help with chassie since I'm using 4mm steel :)

going off track a bit could a £10 argos drill run at 18v?

Theoretically yes. The standard rule for overvolting motors is that 150% is the maximum safe value (so for a 12V motor this would be 18V) but you can never be totally sure when it comes to running components beyond their specification. I've got a pair of the Argos drills but I haven't used them yet. However I will be running them on 19.2V (slightly over the 150% rule) so will see how they perform then.