AJ Quick wrote:


"Just one quick comment on that. The higher the precision, the quicker
it will jam. The military learned that 50 years ago with weapons."

I think that has to do more with the tolerances. I know there were
quite a bit of guns and weapons that weren't made with the same
precision each time, so none of the parts were ever interchangable..
and the guns jammed and blew up in their hands.. so I don't know if
that really holds true.. I know, for example, when they put the turret
of a tank on its platform, it has to be so percisely aligned that even
a thousandth of an inch will not work out right. Same with all the
calibration and alignment to fire.. but once you get down to it.. pull
trigger and shoot.

Without getting into a long ****ing contest about
precision, accuracy, tolerances and resolution,
(which I am quite happy to do if you're up for it),
the point that I was trying to make is that if you
are going to abuse something, you do not need or
even want precise fits. A gear train fitted up
perfectly will be much more likely to bind under
abuse than one that has some slop in it.

Precisely fitted firearms are joy to use, but
often fail under battlefield conditions. Some
of the most successful (and deadly) firearms
were and are made with stamped sheetmetal and
very loose fits. And what you are building is,
ultimately, a weapon that will be abused.

I've worked on missiles and I've worked on ag
equipment. If I were to build a battlebot, I'd
definitely choose the ag approach. If a farmer
can't screw it up, it will probably work for a
while in the battlebot box.

Now I suppose that if I had invested $7000 in
a project and some smartass on rec.metalworking
told me that I should not sweat the finish
and loosen up the fits, and build it more like
a tractor than a Porsche transmission, I'd probably
not want to hear about it. And that's ok with me.

After all, it's not my money, just my opinion.


I was under the impression that this group dealt with high percision
and CNC type metal working. I guess I will have to try
rec.crafts.watchmaking instead.

This group deals with a) liberal vs conservative
politics, b) good, general shop advise.

After once making a foolish reply to a political
post, I prefer to limit myself to b, but to each
his own.

As to the shop advice, yes, there are people that
can answer your question. I believe your question
was concerning steel alloys and not precision
CNC. Concerning the former, I doubt that you could
buy better advice anywhere than Ed Huntress could
give you.

"Frankly I was surprized to leard that you'd spent $7,000.00 on a
project that hadnt been tested with at least one "bl;ade"."

We have $7000 in parts.. motors, gearboxes, batteries, controllers. No
materials yet to actually make the chassis or weapon. Hence my presence
here.

Spending $7000 on parts doesn't prove anything.
Many of us can and do drop that much at work
on a project...