Originally Posted by
slotracer577
If you are going to machine it, aluminum is the quickest and easiers. Will also be relatively stiff. Carbon can work, but is not the easiest material to work with. You should realize that unless you do it in house, machining runs $90+ per hour and you will have a couple of hours in setup. If you are making more than one, this may be the way to go as the machining time will not be that long compared to setup.
If you have the capability to model in cad, the quickest and cheapest is probably to do it out of LS nylon for a rapid prototype house. Plastic is not the stiffest material, so you will need to optimize the structure for stiffness. You can probably mold a chassis for less than $500 and have it in 2 or 3 days using LS nylon. Local place I use is
www.protogenics.com.
John
We have access to a full machine shop (CNC included), so machining costs are reasonable. Aluminum is obviously going to be the easiest route (design in CAD, cut on CNC), but are the advantages of carbon fiber worth the extra work (I'm unfamiliar with precision machining of carbon fiber)? We also have access to Kevlar from the Aerospace department.