how much for plasma cutting and welding of heavy weights?

[daveimi]

I wanted to ask the heavyweight people if they could share some info with me? Erm it basically revolves around the costs of getting one together. I’m fairly au fait with the drive train side of it, but wondered if anyone could shed some light on how much it has costed you in the past to get the steel plasma cut and welded together somewhere? I’m talking in the realms of your average flipper like say ripper, iron awe, manta, eruption and others. Do people weld the monocoques themselves from plasma cut steel, how much of it do people cut and weld themselves etc? Just looking for an idea before I go and ask the local steel place and workshop lol.

[Eventorizon]

I'm not a heavyweight builder but when we costed up machine even a basic pusher was 1.5K. Thats mag drive, lipos, esc's Hardox, no welding or cutting costs included.
You need a design really. I believe Eruption was 3K on its first build. Others will probably be more. Most people will weld the robots themselves, have the pieces plasma or waterjet cut by a company. Then you factor in the cost of the steel. You really need hardox but you could do a first version in mild to test the design.
We figured you need around £3000 to build and maintain a flipper for a few events then spend more to keep it running. But that is us. Your way may make things cost less or more.

[daveimi]

Ok that's great thanks. I knew it would be a lot, do you know how much the raw plasma cut metal comes to roughly?

[maddox10]

Mild steel in normal industrial sizes is about 80-90 pence a kilo over here. Hardox is £3.5 to £4.5 a kilo for grade 450 in normal thin sheet.

Plasma cutting. With the acces to cheap plasmacutters and the easy availability of laser/water cutting firms its kind of old fashioned.

If you make a plywood template that takes in account that the tip of my plasmacutter is 8mm diameter, the cost is a few beers. (P&P is another matter)

[daveimi]

Ohhhh of course they all get stuff waterjet cut! Dunno why I'm rambling about plasma cutting! So the thrux is the panels are drawn in CAD by the robot builder and given to the water jetting company? The water jetting company cuts them out and then passes them back to the robot builder who then welds them into a body or gives them to a welding place to have them welded into a body? How much does that cost?

And Mario that's awesome! So if I made plywood panels and posted them you could post back steel versions!

[teamshock]

That's how we did it with Manta- we supplied the hardox and to have the chassis waterjetted was £180

[typhoon_driver]

angle grinder - £50 tops

[daveimi]

Struth that's not as bad as I thought it would be. Gary that made me laugh lol

May end up with the world's first wooden heavy the rate I'm going lol.

[terry]

Water cutting is expensive I was quoted £180 for 4 hardox bits to hold my motors and wheel axels together, I got them lazer cut for £30 and it was more accurate. Rest of the robot is all 1.2mm angle grinder, job done :-)

[maddox10]

David. I can do so easely enough, if your templates are good. I can even weld it up.
But P&P from Belgium to the UK is a stonecoldhard pain in the posterior.

[typhoon_driver]

I was being serious about the angle grinder. Water jetting and what not is lovely but if you aren't a dab hand with a grinder then repairing your machine at a competition becomes a real challenge as you either don't do it or rely on others who may be busy with their own machines.

[harry hills]

I didn't think many of the heavy's were water/lasercut. I assumed most were done with an angle grinder. Since they are all such thin hardox its real easy to do.

[daveimi]

I'm good with an angle grinder and could buy the plate and cut it, was just looking into how much water jetting is to save time. I can't weld so need someone to do that but have recently seen some robots like Mute are bolted together. Especially Original Sin and that's taken a battering over the years.

[typhoon_driver]

just go buy a dirt cheap £50 stick welder and get learning. Good skill to have.

[daveimi]

Is it true that it's a lot easier to learn that people think? You can buy them in Argos lol.