Spring Steel

too lazy to look up 1095, but the standard blue stuff seems pretty tough, should be pretty decent if you have the weight..how about s7 hardened?? not sure what the app is.

mlec has a 120 in the works that will probably be made almost entirely of hardened s7 plate.

not so good for shock absorption, but the idea is you hit it, someone pays the price

rjw wrote:

mlec has a 120 in the works that will probably be made almost entirely of hardened s7 plate.

Speaking from having seen a robot with full tool steel armor (Robojackets' old wedge, Bambii), that's not the greatest of ideas. It will still break, and is difficult to repair in more ways than one - primarily in that it chips very large pieces off in the process. With a precision-machined robot, this makes lasting repairs a nightmare to perform. But, if you're not concerned about replacing armor plate every year (in other words, if you've got a good sponsor), it'll probably hold up enough to get through a competition.

the stuff isn't that expensive, if you shop it out....and a complete bot (actually 200 lbs) can be hardened for $135

we've had pretty good success with havng other bots self-destruct on our Ti and S7, plus Newton has signed up as an advisor (from the grave) and likes to see some of his laws being tested..

attention to s7's notch sensitivity also helps

peronally, I'd like to see what happens when a big horizontal spinner hits 3/4 or 1" thick hardened tool steel with decent backup support.

should at least make a BIG bang...

Jeff: perhaps the wedge design wasn't up to snuff ...any pics?

are we off topic? sorry

I <3 spring steel. Especially at an angle, rounded off, and supported by something soft like uhmw. Being super hard it's very anti "bite". If they can never dig in and bite, all of the KE in the world won't matter.

Just a pain to work with.

I know some of the Ransom crowd has experience with spring steel on one of their older 15's - the thing was nearly indestructible; it took a hit from [I think] blender in a 120 vs Minis rumble, got thrown across the arena, and other than wheel damage it was still basically fine.

ya.. we've used it in a couple of robots now.. .050" thick I think.. it's unbelievable..

Out of curiosity, where can I find a supplier of 1095? I've been looking around a little bit today and I have yet to find anyone that sells something other than ridiculously thin shim stock.

EDIT: I suspect this is basically the same stuff?
http://www.drillspot.com/products/1040165/select_03342177_sheet?s=1

The time we used it, we were using pretty thin stuff as a 'no bite' flexible jacket. It was mounted over a sheet of foam rubber and on 'loose' screws (two nuts jammed together with a simple through hole in the body of the bot and the spring steel). It was thus intentionally pretty thin, because it was supposed to flex and thus absorb energy. Also it was thin to reduce the weight.

Will Bales found it from a company called Mead Metals, which may or may not have a web presence (we ended up with a print catalog)