Rear roll hoop fishmouths done

Today we finished fishmouthing the members for the rear roll hoop and it is now ready to be tacked.

We have also finished fishmouthing the square tubing members that will support our gearbox and engine.

In addition to our efforts in the machine shop, we are also attempting to reach out to our incoming engineering freshmen. We have planned a team meeting on Wednesday, September 4th at 6 pm to inform people of our amazing team. Engineering freshmen are encouraged to attend and make Baja their engineering club of choice. Food and drinks will be served so please attend if you can!

Lots of progress today

The members for the rear roll hoop that we sent out came in today. The right side member was bent a bit too short so we raised that member up by half an inch. Our seatbelt members have been fishmouthed and are ready to be tacked.

Our foot well rear cross member has been fishmouthed.

The members for the front top plane have been tack welded together.

We have also learned of a new way to do our fishmouths. Basically, we can print out 1:1 scale drawings of the area around the fishmouths and tape them to the actual members to use as a guide.

This method works a lot better than repeatedly milling and fitting members until the fit works, and will be especially helpful on more complex fishmouths, such as those in the rear members.

Fishmouthing

Today we fishmouthed the 10 degree to bottom plane cross member. Unfortunately, one of our fishmouths was done incorrectly.

As you can see below, our right fishmouth is a near perfect fit. However, our left fishmouth has a large gap between the fishmouth and the frame members. In all likelihood, this member will need to be redone.

Tube bending setbacks

Today we tack welded the members of the rear back plane. All that is left is to fully weld the members together.

Unfortunately it seems that we cannot bend our tubes with the hydraulic press located at school. This is unfortunate as we cannot afford to lose any more tubes.

After the unfortunate incident, our options were to either buy a die set for the Tube Shark, have our adviser fabricate the die set, or sublet the work to a professional. We have decided to sublet the tube bending to a professional and luckily for us, our adviser knows someone who can help us with the tube bending.

Roll hoop tube bending

Today we finished fishmouthing the seal belt members to the diagonal roll hoop member.

We then tried to bend the side members of the rear roll hoop.



We squared the tube onto the hydraulic press and measured our angels with a magnetic protractor before continuing with the bending process.


Unfortunately we ended up kinking the tube. This is a minor setback, but we plan to try again using the shark tube bender. We also plan to ask our adviser to help us make a die that will fit into the tube shark.

All miter cuts done

All the miter cuts on the frame are done! We are now one more step closer to a finished frame.

We have also done miter cuts on the side members of the rear roll hoop. We are still in the process of acquiring the correct tube bending equipment so the members may need some finishing miter cuts afterwards.

Unfortunately, we are now short one 1.25 x 0.035 tube due to some mistakes being made during our initial frame building period. Hopefully this will not hold us back from having a finished frame done on schedule!

Weld testing

Earlier we had all practiced welding tubing together. Now it was time to see just how well our welds were - with testing. Using a conveniently located sledgehammer, we tried to break the welds to see which had been done the best. From this we learned that just tacking the tubes together is not sufficient and that we all need more practice welding. Of all the tubes that were impacted, only the one welded by our adviser showed no signs of deformation.

Student Leaders Luncheon

Today our team members participated in a Student Leaders Luncheon with our incoming ECST freshmen. The Student Leaders Luncheon is a way to connect first year students participating in STEP with student campus organization leaders and industry representatives. Let's hope we get some motivated and dedicated members!

Front top plane complete

Today we finished building the front top plane jig and milling the members for it. We also learned that it is possible to mill with a feed of thirty-thousandths instead of twenty-thousandths to reduce the time needed to perform our miter cuts.

TIG welding

Everyone today got some practice with welding. All of us learned how to operate the welding equipment and utilize the proper safety equipment when welding. Many thanks to our technical adviser, Dan Roberto, for providing us with a crash course in TIG welding!

Rear plane finished

The rear plane jig is finished, and the members for it milled into shape.

Tubing cut

Today we drew out the dimensions for the front and back plane of the vehicle and cut out tubing to be milled into shape once the jig was made.

The rear roll hoop jig is finished so we cut out the seat belt bar and diagonal members.

Due to limited space in the lab, we decided to move the bottom plane jig into our trailer.

Rear roll hoop jig built

Today we drew out the rear roll hoop on another wood board. After double checking the dimensions and lines, we started adding on the blocks that would hold the tubing in place.

 

Another end mill lost

We broke another one of our end mills today.

The tube that we were milling at the time was also crushed and damaged as well. We feel that this is the result of the steep angle our mill was at, 48 degrees, and the fact that our mill was spinning at 325 RPM instead of the desired 533 RPM.

Progress and setbacks

Today we broke one of our end mills by feeding too much metal into it. After this incident, we learned to limit ourselves to a feed of twenty-thousandths for each pass.

Broken end mill

This was unfortunate, but we managed to push on and cut all the required tubing as well as mill a few of them into the correct angles.

Bottom frame jigs made

Today we built the jigs for the front nose plane, the bottom plane of the frame, and the engine bay.

Bottom plane jig

Front nose jig

Engine bay jig

Complete bottom plane jig

Drawing out the frame

Today we drew out a scale drawing of our frame on a wooden board in preparation for building our jig.

Initial wooden board

Drawing the bottom plane of the frame

Fully drawn and dimensioned

We also drew out a scale drawing of the bottom of the front of our frame.

Drawn front bottom nose plane

Hello world!

Welcome to the CSULA Mini Baja blog. This is where we will post up our progress in building our vehicle, on and off campus events that we hold, and anything else Mini Baja!

2013 Washington Competition