gaging interest: carbon fiber robot panels
propMaker
Posts: 65
This can be moved to the robotics section if anybody feels it should. I thought it would get more interest here.
Everyday at work we throw away pre-preg carbon fiber. Depending on what parts we are cutting we can have around 50 square feet of waste. I got enough yesterday to make three 13.5" circles, 0.120" thick, 17 ply, ~60% fiber. I just saw those big circles in the trash and thought they would make a good robot base. But I can make more than ill ever use.
This is a stuctural clothe, it has yellow kevlar tracers woven into it to highlight the fiber angles. So it's not going to be as pretty as a car hood. I could do custom sizes, limited only by the size of our scrap and the size of my press. I do have a limited unlimited supply, production schedule and cutfiles produce varying sizes and amounts of scrap. I can also get unidirectional carbon, kevlar cloth, sandwiched kevlar cloth/uni, and e-glass.
Would this be something anybody would want to buy? And the 13.5" round panels, how much would you be willing to pay? The excess resin would need to be cut off, would a rough cut with the bandsaw be good? Or do i need to have them cut professionally? Straight cuts are easy, round cuts would be hard with my equipment. Kevlar would have to be laser cut, the sawblade turns it into fuzz, and the kevlar turns the blade into a butter knife.
Im having trouble attaching a pic with my phone, ill do it when i get home.
Everyday at work we throw away pre-preg carbon fiber. Depending on what parts we are cutting we can have around 50 square feet of waste. I got enough yesterday to make three 13.5" circles, 0.120" thick, 17 ply, ~60% fiber. I just saw those big circles in the trash and thought they would make a good robot base. But I can make more than ill ever use.
This is a stuctural clothe, it has yellow kevlar tracers woven into it to highlight the fiber angles. So it's not going to be as pretty as a car hood. I could do custom sizes, limited only by the size of our scrap and the size of my press. I do have a limited unlimited supply, production schedule and cutfiles produce varying sizes and amounts of scrap. I can also get unidirectional carbon, kevlar cloth, sandwiched kevlar cloth/uni, and e-glass.
Would this be something anybody would want to buy? And the 13.5" round panels, how much would you be willing to pay? The excess resin would need to be cut off, would a rough cut with the bandsaw be good? Or do i need to have them cut professionally? Straight cuts are easy, round cuts would be hard with my equipment. Kevlar would have to be laser cut, the sawblade turns it into fuzz, and the kevlar turns the blade into a butter knife.
Im having trouble attaching a pic with my phone, ill do it when i get home.
Comments
If you could figure a way to get lots of scrap out for folks to experiment.... one in one hundred will eventually find a real, profitable use for it. An that person will then order tons, and maybe even send business your way.
So, get it to many folks cheap, and eventually get a few paying customers. If you can afford a large number of small loses before you score a few large gains, this is one way to go.
PM me if you want to send a pile to a single address, I have the Chicago Robot Club and Workshop 88, these are collections of folks very likely to have an interest.
My $0.02
Probably most useful for weight-critical apps, flying bots & such. But your post did make me order this carbon fiber stick-on film, just for cool effect. Might have to jazz up a plywood robot chassis sometime.
http://www.ebay.com/itm/3D-Twill-Weave-CARBON-FIBER-VINYL-12-x-50-Roll-BLACK-Wrap-Sheet-31cm-x-127cm-/200752805382?pt=Motors_Car_Truck_Parts_Accessories&hash=item2ebdccb606#ht_749wt_683
It probably is best to avoid inhaling the dust while cutting or machining. But, that is true for any material. And if you're not used to it it can make you want to scratch your skin off.
I am not sure that fiberglass is any great hazard, and carbon mixed with epoxy seems no greater. I am sure someone would greatly appreciate scraps for small, strong, tough, and light-weight devices. It is certainly easier to use that sheet metal.
Just remember that very itchy feeling on your skin when laying fiberglass insulation. The lungs are very more susceptible to irritation from both products.
I'm begining to like this stuff more and more! How do I get some?
-Phil
I learned the cold shower method also when building fiberglass hovercrafts. We also sprayed our arms with hair spray to seal the pores before work.
It sounds like you would like to make some use of scrap PrePreg Carbon Fiber material.
Have you any experience with building tooling for other parts made of the carbon?
I'm currently involved in a personal project to build a bracket for housing dual lights and the original white reflector that
is on All bicycles purchased in the United States.
I'm inserting a photo of my current prototype carbon and aluminum tube bracket, still under construction
It's very interesting that you are working with Carbon Fibre in a production environment.
I'll be using my bracket, still in the works, to mount dual lights and bicycle computer.
Bicycles are not made to do this for some reason.
Carbon Fibre is very light weight and could be used in very many bicycle projects.
NOW
Here is my point.
What I'm seeing in my near future is a carbon fibre formed part that houses some LIPO batteries with a Solar cell charger
so that I could connect my NiteRider MiNewt bicycle light.
The solar charger could be voltage and or current regulated via microcontroller.
I think I'm not alone in not having enough mounting space for accessories on bicycles.
I also think that building simple mechanical things are somewhat difficult for most people starting in robotics and or
other mechanical / Microcrontroller projects.
Please keep your mind open to new ideas.
While the Carbon Fibre topic may seem off topic, I'm guessing that people other than myself are very much appreciating this.
Any and All comments to my Rantings are appreciated.
GaryG
Your prototype looks great.
As far as making molds, there is a guy that makes repair molds that I could learn from. He uses fiberglass, some other type of epoxy and aluminum pellets for filler. I'm not sure if a mold like that could handle 250° for curing this material. I will have to check the documentation to see what it can handle. The other problem is, the stuff he uses is, if I'm remembering correctly, over $100 per pint.
For an enclosure like you're wanting, using dry fiber and laying it up in a mold with room temp curing resin would probably be best. I don't have experience doing that myself. But I think i could learn.
My prices could be higher than it needs to be. Everything we use is aviation/aerospace grade material. I would like to get more into mold making and molding parts, I see fiber composites as a good future.
We have experimented with making tubing at work. It was a slow expensive process. It was about 2 to 2 1/2" OD, with 1/4" wall thickness. It was supposed to be used in landing gear but the customer said it cost too much for the weight savings. I forget the load we tested it at, but it could handle a 4 passenger plane dropping on this single strut.
Tubing would require a special mold and carbon socks. We have the material, but we don't produce usable lengths of scrap.
I had an idea for making tubes, that would require a smaller mold, but allow near infinite lengths to be molded. One layer would be easy, two or more would start complicating things. I tried to get management to listen to my idea, but nobody seemed interested. I should look into how it's made now, it could be in use already for all I know.
I've made some tubes out of Fiberglass Cloth, 6oz / epoxy.
If a special mandrel is not used, it's difficult to remove from the tool,
especially if the diameter of the tube is small.
I've been thinking lately that wraping a piece of tubing with paper and laminating the Carbon Fibre over top might be the answer.
PropMaker,
As far as my fiberglass/carbon projects have been concerned, If you can possibly make a tool out of Plaster of Paris and bake it
at about 100 degreesF for about 48 hrs., the moisture of the plaster is gone and it will handle over 500 degrees temperature.
That would be plenty of heat handling in an autoclave oven, as long as all the moisture is removed.
It might pay for you to try some Plaster of Paris experiments.
My thoughts about health safety and Carbon Fibre are concerned:
My basement workshop was originally set up to make furniture out of Black Walnut.
I use HEPA filters on my dust removal equipment because I found out that wood dust from Black Walnut and other species
has been determined to be a cancer causing material.
I would imagine that if Anyone is working in an environment that has dust needs to use every precaution available to eliminate the
particulate from getting in their lungs.
When I'm trimming fiberglass or Carbon fiber, I always do the 1st crude trimming outside with a grinder or saw with the wind at my back.
My sanding equipment uses HEPA filters, but I do only minimal finish sanding in my basement workshop.
AND
A question from the original message on this thread.
How heavy are the 1/8" x 13.5" diameter circles, LBS or GRAMS.
For small robotics projects, I'm thinking that 13.5" circles about 0.040 thick would be more than strong enough.
Another AND,
When bonding one aged Carbon Fibre part to another, What is the best way to prepare the parts to be bonded.
I weighed one, but forgot to write it down. With the excess resin still attached I think it was right around a pound. I will weigh it again Monday. I make some panels for quality testing that are 0.040". They are pretty flexible and springy. I also make some that are 0.080" and they are rigid. I chose 0.120 because I have the shims for it and I thought it would be thick enough to drill and tap. If 0.080 is thick enough then I could increase my yield by 50%.
I glue fiberglass pieces to carbon for one test. I rough up the surfaces of both with around 200 grit sand paper. I usually just blow the dust off with compressed air. It can also be wiped with a rag soaked in acetone. I mix the epoxy up and add glass micro-balloons. The balloons prevent the two parts from squeezing all of the adhesive out. Fiberglass cloth can also be used to space the pieces apart. This bond is a little over 1 square inch on both sides and holds more than 6,000 lbs in shear, that's when the carbon breaks.
-Phil
I never thought composites were good heat conductors. I ruined some fiberglass parts with the heat from a few strain gages. Though part of that was from powering them with 30V instead of 10V, oops. We had some carbon laser cut and it didn't turn out good. The edges of the cut was very weak from burning and the heat.
I think a water jet would work good.
Have you ever heard of 'barrier cream'?
http://www.ecfibreglasssupplies.co.uk/c-603-personal-protection.aspx
And now there seems to be "after work cream".
If one dreads breathing any dust at all, stay away. But I have quite a bit of exposure to fiberglass, sawdust and sheet rock dust. I seem to be okay. Precautions are wise, but that doesn't mean that this stuff is a huge hazard.