Does anyone have any experience of anodizing your robot? Anyone know where to buy good kits and how to do it? We’re trying to anodize our robot red. thanks
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Send it out to be done. Acids and dyes are not fun.
Looks like you have a local company that can anodize things in your town (thanks for using the location and team in your profile)
Ahh the old days before Google. Thomas Register. The old school place to find companies…
Pacific West America. Maybe you can get them to be a sponsor too?
http://www.thomasnet.com/profile/30151971/pacific-west-america-inc.html?what=Aluminum+Anodizing&cov=CS&heading=1790203&searchpos=10&cid=30151971
We have our own anodizing line. It’s not a cheap process to get into and it will take some time to perfect the process. We do usual commercial grade chemicals and dyes which are expensive. RIT dyes don’t hold up as well. The metal from VEX is sealed and from our experience takes a little more time in the etch to release it before we desmut. Get a good voltage regulator and make sure that you are only using aluminum or titanium in your tank. Iron and steel will disrupt the process. I recommend doing a double rinse after anodizing, once in a pH controlled deionized water bath and then in a mixture of sodium bicarbonate and deionized water to break down acidic particles that stick to the metal and will cause spotting. You can send me a private message if you want more details, because I can fill this page with all of our notes.
Wow, we barely have time to build and program our robots! I am in awe of the fact that you can also entertain the idea of making them fancy colors!!
Well it takes about 72 minutes for the anodization process. So once we get to that stage they build while I monitor the line. When it’s done, they pause and dye, then another 15 minutes for the seal process. We inspect then start another batch. We should get a little more consistency now that it’s colder. Trying to do this in a Texas summer is really hard. Fighting algae in dye baths is another. We have consulted many experts in the field and most are very helpful. It has been a fun process to learn for me and my teams. Frustrating? Oh yes!! but when you get that perfect batch it is very rewarding. Never thought I would like pink metal, but it’s amazing.
That’s very cool. One day…
We have an anodizing company in Monroe who has done runs of parts for our team as a corporate sponsor. You might check out and see if K&L in Burbank would be willing to run a rack of parts for your team. Best impressions are made when mature team members can make a professional-looking presentation and tell company exec’s the value of Competitive Robotics.
@Kevin Boenisch sounds like a good thing to sell on robosource… Not sure how much markup would be needed.
there was a team selling anodized aluminium with a relatively small markup. ill post the link here if i find it.
it looks like the website is under maintenance but it’s neobots.org/store
Yea, sorry it’s still down. Sam is making some needed changes to it, but it will be back up soon. It’s taken a little longer than we thought. All these competitions keep getting in the way.
That would be awesome, I would definitely buy that!
Sounds like one of those takes a while to setup and get right but once you do it’s worth it type situations.
I’ve only ever done spray paint jobs for VEX stuff. When done correctly with good cleaning and a couple solid coats and given a day or two to dry, parts turn out pretty well. I’ve attached some pictures from one of the NAR robots that did red spray paint last season.
Those do look very nice. I was lucky enough to have a parent who found some great people in the business who sponsored us by providing the chemicals and dyes. Setting up the line wasn’t cheap, but it was a whole lot easier to handle with the donations. A really great garage sale allowed us to stock up on other items we needed. My guys have worked hard to learn the process and that has been the most rewarding experience. Plus if we feel like we need a little color, we just fire up the heaters and run a batch. Boom nice pretty metal for our robots.
Honestly, Spray paint is good and all, but it makes the metal heavier. That’s why some teams such as team 60 have used anodizing since it is much lighter. But if you are very busy and have no time to decorate then spray paint it.
This is true, and really applies to any paint. This along with the the extra time makes me generally not into painting things. Finding an anodizing sponsor has been on my list of things to do for a while.