Society of Robots - Robot Forum

Mechanics and Construction => Mechanics and Construction => Topic started by: Joker94 on August 05, 2009, 03:06:43 AM

Title: Plastic Thickness
Post by: Joker94 on August 05, 2009, 03:06:43 AM

What thickness plastic do people recomend and or think will be suitable. Whether it is acrylic or HDPE

What do people recomend

Title: Re: Plastic Thickness
Post by: SmAsH on August 05, 2009, 03:10:18 AM

what is it for? a base?

Title: Re: Plastic Thickness
Post by: sonictj on August 05, 2009, 03:34:23 AM

Quote

What thickness plastic do people recomend and or think will be suitable. Whether it is acrylic or HDPE

What do people recomend

your gonna hate me, but it all depends on the specific use.  This is like the infamous question "whats the microcontroller".  It all depends on your design.  I use .25" acrylic often, because I do a lot of tapping.   I have been known to use 1/8 inch for stuff too.  Unfortunately the best answer to your question is it depends.  If you can be more specific as Smash suggested we may be able better answer your question more to your liking.

Title: Re: Plastic Thickness
Post by: SmAsH on August 05, 2009, 03:49:16 AM

for a base i would recommend 1/4"...
but this all does depend on the size of the part and which part it is.

Title: Re: Plastic Thickness
Post by: Joker94 on August 05, 2009, 04:30:40 AM

Well to start off with it will be just the base but eventually it will become a fullon bot.

I attached a picture of my chassi idea. And i an leaning towards 1/4 inch as i can tap it. and maybe 1/8 for y arm and other add ons. All of this will be hopfully joined by custom aluminum brackets.

Title: Re: Plastic Thickness
Post by: wil.hamilton on August 05, 2009, 06:48:18 AM

if you're going to be using it for a base, i would go with the 1/4 especially if you're using hdpe, acrylic is stiffer and you could probably get away with using 1/8 and still have it stiff enough, but, it also depends on the dimensions.

Title: Re: Plastic Thickness
Post by: Joker94 on August 06, 2009, 02:18:53 AM

i am leaning towards 1/4. As i can tap the plastic.

i still have not decided whether to use acrylic or HDPE  :-\

Title: Re: Plastic Thickness
Post by: SmAsH on August 06, 2009, 06:10:48 AM

if you do decide to use hdpe, and find a reasonable distributor, tell me...
i have been searching for someone besides mc master carr for ages.

Title: Re: Plastic Thickness
Post by: Joker94 on August 06, 2009, 06:15:15 AM

i have GB plastics, they are my local plastics place

http://www.gbplastics.com.au/ (http://www.gbplastics.com.au/)

Title: Re: Plastic Thickness
Post by: matt liao on August 07, 2009, 12:20:05 AM

It all depends, the thickness of plastic parts usually is 1~5mm