Construction

Winter quarter begun with a slight redesign to the overall design. The biggest redesign has been to the gear train system, with slight adjustments to the dimensions to parts of the suspension system.

Figure B7: Construction Photo 6

Suspension Rod

The suspension rod was completed without any complications. The method of manufacturing used to make this part was the lathe and the drill press. The lathe was used to reduce the diameter of the bar stock down to .3”. The drill press was used to add the .125” holes at either end of the suspension bar. There were no issues with tolerancing that affected the usability of the parts, all of them were manufactured to satisfaction.

The 3D Printing Section

The manufacturing process began with the rear and front suspension knuckle and two of each were made. It was decided to make these two different parts on the 3D printer. Both of these parts were printed at the same time. In the first attempt at printing these together these parts were projected to take 2 hours and 32 minutes to print and used 23.07g of material, the material selected was PLA. The first attempt at these parts were not successful because of a mistake in the programing of the print. For an unknown reason the printer failed to add breakaway support so portions of the part failed to print correctly, additionally for unknown reasons the printer had a honeycomb center and not a solid center. This was noticed, fixed, and restarted after almost two hours of printing. The second print was successful, it printed with both the breakaway support and the solid core.

The manufacturing of the shock brace mount was completed without any failures. There were risks for this manufacturing task because it was nearing a manufacturing deadline in which the printers were often in use, luckily there was no issues and everything was able to be completed. A small redesign to this part was made to this part to raise the top hole to fit better with the suspension rod. It was decided to use the same PLA material again for this part. In this attempt at printing this part was projected to take 1 hour and 53 minutes to print and used 23.08g of material. This piece was also made with a solid core but no support was needed for these pieces. This part was manufactured to satisfaction.

Figure B1: Construction Photo 1

Figure B2: Construction Photo 2

The plasma cutter was used to create the suspension arm part. The decision was made to use steel instead of aluminum for this part because the plasma cutter is unable to properly cut aluminum and this part is small enough to where the difference in weight of material would not significantly effect the part. Overall this part was a success.

The Plasma cutting Section

Figure B3: Construction Photo 3

The Bridgeport mill was used to drill the original holes that were used to hold the shock brace material in place. After the CNC mill was used to cut out the material and it was not exactly perfect the Bridgeport was used to face off material to fix the imperfections in the part.

The Bridgeport Milling Section

Figure B4: Construction Photo 4

The bandsaw was used a couple times once for separating the the two outlines of material so that they could be machined easier.

The Bandsaw

Figure B5: Construction Photo 5

The shock tower has also had to be reimagined because of the restrictions with the plasma cutter. The CNC machine was used to cut out the outline of the shock tower. To accomplish this a special chuck was made to be able to hold the part material in place using the holes that will be placed in the tower anyway. The first attempt ended up coming loose and creating complications but still a usable part. Changes were made to the chuck so that it encased all six holes to stop vibration.

The CNC Milling Section

Figure B6: Construction Video 1

Figure B8: Photo 7

Figure B9: Photo 8