double layer of armour, chassis & other

[Jackpietrzak1]

As my first antweight robot Pump 'N' Milla, will have 0.8mm aluminium armour.

My second antweight robot Little Lucy Luxury will have 0.8mm aluminium & polycarbonate (0.6mm or 0.4mm thick) to deflect spinners, should I build a plastic chassis for the aluminium & polycarbonate armour to be bolted on or should I just build the aluminium armour & cover it with polycarbonate cover?

My third antweight robot is going to be called C Through Wacky, which is a simple round invertible robot made out of polycarbonate. How do you bend polycarbonate with shattering?

I've add these pic to show you the materials that I got for all 3 antweight robots of mine.

just to confurem - Pump 'N' Milla's armour will be 0.8mm aluminium only
- Little Lucy Luxury's armour will be 0.8mm aluminium & polycarbonate (not sure what thickness would be right)
- C Through Wacky's armour will be just polycarbonate

IMGA0702.JPGIMGA0703.JPGIMGA0704.JPGIMGA0705.JPGIMGA0707.JPGIMGA0708.JPG

[harry hills]

Just a note, 0.8mm aluminum won't make very good armour, and nor will 0.6mm polycarbonate. 2mm polycarbonate/hdpe plus would be a better idea, with 0.5mm ti if you can get it. Just having one thicker layer of one material will be better. I use a 4mm frame, normally hdpe, and 2mm hdpe or 0.5mm ti armour.
polycarbonate does not crack when bent, 1-2mm can be cold folded, 3mm + you may have to heat slightly.

[psychostorm]

Napalm Death's shunt was 1mm HDPE. Still no spinner managed to break it. LOL

[harry hills]

I just ignored your armor and ate your drive servos instead :P

[psychostorm]

Ironically it needed 1mm HDPE on the back more than the 0mm I ended up with. LOL.

I'm still less mad about that than Dave Weston pushing me out the arena when it had a 2mm steel shunt. How on earth did it lose by falling oota in a spinner melee?

[Jackpietrzak1]

sadly I only have 0.8mm aluminium & polycarbonate material . For me to understand all 3 of my antweight robot would have to have a thicker armour 2/3mm thick aluminium & polycarbonate sheet for example. Is that right? I have to understand as you are experience in antweight robot building.

[tweedermeister]

I can vouch for the use of thicker materials as well since the first ant I built myself used 1mm polycarb and that just bent under any force so would be no use against spinners. HDPE is a good alternative to polycarb and amuninium, easy to work and readily available in sheets.

[harry hills]

I wouldn't bother with aluminum atall tbh. not really suited to ants, not strong enough at the small thicknesses.
you can probably get away with 1mm polycarb/hdpe (so your 0.8mm might be of some use) just think about angles and atachment. a one piece shell made out of a single piece of folded polycarbonate can be quite strong, spinners may punch a few holes in it, but some of those can also punch through titanium aswell. I'd say look at existing antweights and how they are built, and also joining the antweight forum for more help.

[duff]

I'd say forget aluminium all together. One hit from a spinner and it will get buckled and need replacing. Polycarbonate is decent stuff, but anything less than 1mm isn't really up to the job. You can buy and A4 sheet of 1mm polycarb from ebay for less than £2, and that will be enough for 2 or 3 antweights. Also, as others have mentioned, HDPE is very good at absorbing impacts and is also quite cheap. It's not too good against cutting weapons though, Ripto easily cut through 2mm HPDE on one of my ants at the last AWS.