Anyone looking for Carbon Fiber?

[DrKnow65]

OK, here's the story. I have a good friend who used to build custom rock crawlers (the full sized ones) who just changed jobs to go work at a CF build company. When he told me this you all can guess what I beat into him for the next few hours Why RC CF needs of course

That was last week, and now that he's had a chance to look into it with the business it seems there is a good possibility to get some CF stuff done.

It's a small business making CF items from scratch, they weave their own fiber, make their own resin, and do testing in-house. So there is a good potential to get them involved in making some high quality parts for us (application specific weaving makes for a much stronger CF part).

There is also quite a bit of usable CF left over from trimmings and testing (I assume lots of flat pieces and some angle stuff) that could be sold as-is or mabey milled into specific parts?

The caution is that the molds to make 3D parts are extremely expensive to make so prototyping isn't going to happen without a real solid market for the piece. Think along the lines of $10,000 for a custom revo chassis mold, so they would have to sell over 100 chassis at $100 to make a penny on it.
This could work however if the demand was there. I could see something like Sike's direct drive revo with a custom chassis specificly made to mount the batteries, motor, electronics, ect or a hyper8 chassis with the motor mount, battery trays, servo mounts, ect all integrated.


So the topic is open, what are the ideas and needs you all have? any significant interest?

[squeeforever]

Personally, just some decently priced flat 3mm plate would be nice.

[sikeston34m]

Well Thanks Dr. Know.

I haven't worked with Carbon Fiber, but from what I hear it's some really light and strong stuff.

How much lighter is it than Aluminum? One quality I really admire about Aluminum is it's heat sinking ability.

Everything has it's place though. Can Carbon Fiber really be molded and shaped by applying heat?

[DrKnow65]

I believe it is almost the same weight as aluminum per cubic inch, but it is stronger so identical strenght parts can be made thinner in CF and so the CF parts are lighter.

I do need to mention that I personally don't work for the CF shop, so my understanding of CF is basic "google&liberary" type stuff :)

I remember reading somewhere about carboncarbon foam that has high thermal cunductance, dunno if CF can be made to have good thermal properties.

[squeeforever]

I don't think most CF can be heated to take a shape, but I have done it with some. I had to do it on the the CF rear caliper guard on my CR125R and I had some shoe inserts that had CF plates. I pulled those out and flattened them with a heat gun. They worked perfect, but the resin on the caliper guard started to want to crack.

[rchippie]

I think flat & angled stock would be your best bet, & the most popular.

[DrKnow65]

I believe whether or not the CF can be softened again by heat depends on the resin/hardner they use.

I know Dodge made CF intake maifold for the Viper that wouldn't disform under SEVERE heat.

[jhautz]

Id love to se some sort of molded carbon fiber battery box. I currently use 2 angle pieces overlaped on the bottom to make a tray, but one that was molded with a front and back too and had some sort of flang on the front and back for screwing down to the chassis and holding a strap would be awesome. It would have to be generic enough that it could be used semi unversally. I'm thinking mostly for buggy/truggy applications where you basically would screw it down to a flat chassis.

Although, right now I would be really happy to find a place that could supply semi resonable priced Carbon fiber angle stock in lengths shorter than 6 feet.

[DrKnow65]

best guess for an "average" lipo battery? To fit the tray to...

[squeeforever]

Jhautz might be onto something with the battery tray idea. Best guess for size would be around 50mm wide, maybe 52mm. Length, not really sure.

[jhautz]

Seems to me the most popular lipo sizes out there are the enerland size cells and the Max Amps size cells which are both 45-46mm wide. If you made it fit a 166 mm long battery it would fit the enerland based 5000mah packs and the Maxamps 5000 packs. (as welss many other of the pack sizes) The maxamps are a little shorter and thicker but it would still work.

Another possibility would be to have the back of the battery tray be a separate piece that could be adjustbale for the battery lengeth and held inplace with the screw that holds the strap down.

[Serum]

there are too many sizes of cells to say what size you would need. Ideally you need several sizes.

[dirt101]

yeah if they made a battery tray for the revo that would be awesome, but I use the true rc 6400s and they are slightly longer than a standard pack.

[squeeforever]

Yea, the reason I said 50-52 is because TrueRC packs, atleast the ones most used are 50-52mm.

[dirt101]

it wouldnt effect it at all if it was a little large for the maxamps packs, so if he were to make one it would best to make it fit the larger packs(like true rcs)