Non-metal armour

[joey_picus]

Welcome to the little side of the sport Philip, what sort of ant are you building?

I used 0.5mm polycarbonate brackets on Jigsaw (which is similar to what you're proposing in construction, only with an aluminium top and polycarbonate base) and they work well, with one M2.5 bolt through each side and bent to shape. For the next version I'm going with smaller bolts and more of them on each side purely for stability, as atm the nuts have a habit of unscrewing themselves, but it's quite durable and allows a bit of flex in the design.

[Simon Windisch]

If your nuts are unscrewing themselves Joey, try nyloc nuts, or spring washers, but don't use loctight as it disolves polycarbonate.

[Philip]

Thanks. I want to build a pneumatic flipper, but I am having troubles finding a light valve. I have built several feather flippers in the past. I might just build a servo powered lifter as a first ant.

I have been reading your forum for a while now and have picked up lots of helpful tips.

[BeligerAnt]

Welcome to the forum Philip!

Screws are definitely the way to go with polycarbonate. Gaffa tape is possibly the only alternative

Pneumatic ants are limited to 7 bar (100 psi), and that's more than enough to contend with! Andy Hibberd is the person to talk to about antweight pneumatics, but he is resorting to making his own valve now

Good luck with your foray into ants, and hope to see you at an event soon.

[knightrous]

Philip is a fellow Australian, so you might not quite see him at an event

[alasdair]

As it says in the rules that you cannot have a one bit shell using metal.

Just on the same subject, can you have a complete metal shell using two half shells connected on the base? (with screws, not welding)

[BeligerAnt]

Check the date on posts when responding to them, that post is nearly 3 years old!
Also check the current rules, which are always available at:

http://www.robotwars101.org/ants/rules.htm

Metal armour restrictions were removed some time ago. You can use anything you like within the size & weight limits. If you can build it, we will fight it!