Armour for a full combat feather

[calumco]

hi,
just wondering what kind of armour would be good enough to stand up to the amazing feather spinners that are about.

mabye some thick HDPE? if so what thickness

or titanium?

aluminium?

mabye a bit of steel if the weight would allow?

im about to start making another feather which will be a vertical crusher that would be used mainly at the full comat events, and seeing as i've never been to one before im not too sure about the armor i need. also- nothing too expensive.

[ady]

i have used 10mm hdpe which has been pretty good for me. Titanium is also very good, but can be pretty expensive and harder to work with. i like hdpe as it is cheap and very easy to work with, and not that heavy, you can only get it in black or white mostly though, i get all mine from direct plastics.
steel is really heavy so wouldnt bother using that as armour in my opinion. my fw spinner would cause alot more damage to steel than hdpe when i used to test it.

[calumco]

i've got some feathers that i only take to the non spinner events, and they have 8mm hdpe and 3mm ali kind of stuff for armour.

but ok, ill stick to the hdpe and get 10mm thick or get thicker if the weigh will allow.

thanks

[xtreme]

If you can work with ti, use ti, if not use hdpe.
I get my HDPE from Direct Plastics .
If you go with HDPE get more than you need, then take some to the event with you, then if a spinner rips up a panel or 2 of your armour you can quickly and easily cut a new panel.

Infact even if you go with HDPE bolt some ti to it so we can make some sparks, Always looks good when you see a load of sparks flying everywhere in the arena.

[leorcc]

The trick with HDPE is that you can go much thicker for the same weight. 1 mm Ti is close to 4 mm HDPE. So 3mm Ti is already 12mm HDPE for the same weight. Even more so when you compare it to steel. 1 mm steel is close to 8mm HDPE.

[ady]

we have built a new fw robot which is a 6 wheel drive with electric lifter, it has been built to stand up to the spinners, and i have used 10mm hdpe armour, 6mm mild steel for the front wedge, 4mm ti for the lid, and 5mm 6082 ali for the base.. although i have gone for alot more drive power this time round to push the spinners in the pit or oota. the wedge is really angled for extra strength, and to hopefully get under those pesky flippers. gone for a sort of a storm 2 look.

my hdpe is just bolted on the the sides, i also have counter sunk the mounting bolts so the spinners can chew them up.

[typhoon_driver]

best armour for featherweights? Gotta be air.

Sounds a bit but follow me on this one.....

Basically whatever outer armour you decide to go with, make sure all your components are as far away from it as possible. At the featherweight champs I took big hits either side of hornet on the 2mm titanium but nothing inside was damaged as there was a good inch before anything vital was hit. Thats why I could keep it running the whole event.

[psycho_fling]

Whats this crusher going to be then?

not many about

[calumco]

its going to look similar to tiberius but be different, like with the kan-opener looking robot that im also making in the build dairies video but that one isn't for full combat.

[RogueTwoRobots]

If all goes to plan, there'll be another crusher come the end of summer, although I think I said the same thing a couple of years back

I'd recommend HDPE Calum; cheap, thick, and really nice and easy to work with. Although Tom has a good point about Ti and sparks (always looks cool ) if you don't have the facilities to work with Ti, then HDPE is a good substitute. A 500mmx500mmx12mm sheet from http://www.directplastics.co.uk is only, like, £12ish I think, including postage. Plus its easy to cut and fit a replacement piece if it gets chewed up by a spinner. Gary also makes a very valid point about air being your friend.

Good luck with the crusher. I'm finding in the planning stages of mine that its going to be quite a bit of work desiging the claw, getting the material and getting it made, plus there are a lot of little obstacles springing up that you don't initially expect. I'm banking on the chassis construction being relatively straightforward as long as I build it strong enough to cope with exerted forces. I reckon it'll all be worth it in the end though, and it will be good to follow your build and hopefully draw some helpful parallels with it.