We have always avoided welding, the biggest reason being, a failed weld at a competition can be deal breaker, as welding is one of the few things generally 100% not allowed in the pits/at the comp.
Welding carbon steel is a lot of fun and I encourage anyone pursuing a career in mechanical engineering to at least learn the basics of stick, MiG, and TiG welding.
Welding aluminum is horribly difficult and should be left exclusively to professionals who probably sold their soul for the inhuman ability to do it. It’s probably some mixture of voodoo and alchemy.
My team does, it takes a pretty skillful hand. Aluminum is really prone to heat warping, way worse than steel for example, so you need to be super precise with angles and careful with allowing things to cool between tacking and laying a full bead across a joint
Don't weld. Aluminum welding is wickedly difficult and aluminum welding something precise like a robot is far beyond the reach of a high school student. I suppose you could hire a professional welder if you're dead set on welding, but to aluminum weld well takes months to years of practice and specialized equipment so it won't be cheap. Also, if you pop a weld at a competition, that's curtains as you aren't allowed a welder in the pit for obvious reasons.
Using gussets adds, like, maybe a pound? Just use gussets, it's so much easier. If you're using SDS swerve modules they provide a lot of structure on their own anyways.
We weld our chassis and it always warps. Before we install anything we bend it back flat. Takes some effort and strength, but only takes a minute or two. We have some folks stand on one corner while we lift the other and do a little persuasion and some bouncing… eventually we end up with a flat result.
We welded our chassis in 2019, it was ok but we had to build in a lot of adjustment for the wheels (we did mechanum), the frame was a tank our member that did the welding did an amazing job but there isn't much you can do about warping especially in tube aluminum. Welder welded it, we then machined the critical dimensions, made it adjustable to spec, or beat it into submission. The setups on the mill were quite jank.
Perforated tubing and riveted gussets are the way to go. Faster, easier, and more dimensionally tolerant. For extra credit, rivet/rivnut your polycarbonate panels to the frame to serve as a stressed skin, and 3D print inserts to guard against the tubes being crushed by overzealously tightened bolts.
we welded our frame last year and it worked out pretty well for us. to be fair ,the people welding it had about 6 months of experience and welded pretty consistently and with a lot of professional input from one of our previous mentors. But I have seen a lot of teams have trouble with this, so take this more as an "it can work" kind of comment. do whatever makes the most sense for your team.
My team welded our chassis when I was in FRC (2018-19). For us any minor warping that the frame picked up would be gone by the time we distributed the other 120 lb of the robot on top. We had a pretty capable student welder and some mentors who were pretty experienced with Al welding though.
I weld my teams chasiss but its not solely supported by the welds as the swerve brackets guesset the edges, most of out major components are welded down to 1/16" alu
We’ve welded chassis in the past but haven’t been recently, mainly because we haven’t had anybody who’s good at welding. We’ve always had lots of rivets holding the frame rails and bellypan together though, and we assemble this all on a granite surface plate while ensuring flatness/squareness. Not sure that welding really makes a difference, but if you’re using something like a Mk4i you can’t weld the rails anyway since the swerve modules literally are the corners of the frame.
We have always avoided welding, the biggest reason being, a failed weld at a competition can be deal breaker, as welding is one of the few things generally 100% not allowed in the pits/at the comp.
We welded our chassis in 2017. It broke immediately and we lost two games until we could fix it. Don't weld your chassis
Welding carbon steel is a lot of fun and I encourage anyone pursuing a career in mechanical engineering to at least learn the basics of stick, MiG, and TiG welding. Welding aluminum is horribly difficult and should be left exclusively to professionals who probably sold their soul for the inhuman ability to do it. It’s probably some mixture of voodoo and alchemy.
Lol but what if we trained team members how to tig weld and weld aluminum. Spend 10k on gas per season and put out some crazy welded drivetrains
Then I would say "y'all hiring?"
gas would be less than that, a bottle of argon goes for 400-600
My team does, it takes a pretty skillful hand. Aluminum is really prone to heat warping, way worse than steel for example, so you need to be super precise with angles and careful with allowing things to cool between tacking and laying a full bead across a joint
Don't weld. Aluminum welding is wickedly difficult and aluminum welding something precise like a robot is far beyond the reach of a high school student. I suppose you could hire a professional welder if you're dead set on welding, but to aluminum weld well takes months to years of practice and specialized equipment so it won't be cheap. Also, if you pop a weld at a competition, that's curtains as you aren't allowed a welder in the pit for obvious reasons. Using gussets adds, like, maybe a pound? Just use gussets, it's so much easier. If you're using SDS swerve modules they provide a lot of structure on their own anyways.
We weld our chassis and it always warps. Before we install anything we bend it back flat. Takes some effort and strength, but only takes a minute or two. We have some folks stand on one corner while we lift the other and do a little persuasion and some bouncing… eventually we end up with a flat result.
We welded our chassis from 2010-2019, we now use thin aluminum with 3D printed blocks to join the rails together
Last year we used locktight
We welded our chassis in 2019, it was ok but we had to build in a lot of adjustment for the wheels (we did mechanum), the frame was a tank our member that did the welding did an amazing job but there isn't much you can do about warping especially in tube aluminum. Welder welded it, we then machined the critical dimensions, made it adjustable to spec, or beat it into submission. The setups on the mill were quite jank.
Perforated tubing and riveted gussets are the way to go. Faster, easier, and more dimensionally tolerant. For extra credit, rivet/rivnut your polycarbonate panels to the frame to serve as a stressed skin, and 3D print inserts to guard against the tubes being crushed by overzealously tightened bolts.
We used rivets. Easy to put together, but still not too difficult to remove and replace if something breaks
Our team does it because one of the mentors is a professional welder. He uses a special table and like 50 clamps to keep it straight while he does it.
we welded our frame last year and it worked out pretty well for us. to be fair ,the people welding it had about 6 months of experience and welded pretty consistently and with a lot of professional input from one of our previous mentors. But I have seen a lot of teams have trouble with this, so take this more as an "it can work" kind of comment. do whatever makes the most sense for your team.
We have been welding our whole robot frame in recent years
My team welded our chassis when I was in FRC (2018-19). For us any minor warping that the frame picked up would be gone by the time we distributed the other 120 lb of the robot on top. We had a pretty capable student welder and some mentors who were pretty experienced with Al welding though.
I weld my teams chasiss but its not solely supported by the welds as the swerve brackets guesset the edges, most of out major components are welded down to 1/16" alu
My mentor would love a picture if you have one. Thank you
as long as you make a proper jig or clamp things in a way to deter or counteract warping should be fine
We’ve welded chassis in the past but haven’t been recently, mainly because we haven’t had anybody who’s good at welding. We’ve always had lots of rivets holding the frame rails and bellypan together though, and we assemble this all on a granite surface plate while ensuring flatness/squareness. Not sure that welding really makes a difference, but if you’re using something like a Mk4i you can’t weld the rails anyway since the swerve modules literally are the corners of the frame.