Hello there! I have a quite flexy deck (loaded dervish flex 2). I am planning a build that will require a full enclosure on the bottom so the flex is really bad for that. I was thinking of putting carbon fiber on the underside to make it more stiff.
I need advice on how many layers i will need (say on 200g/m2 CF) to make i stiff. Or if you think that i should use glass fiber instead.
Thanks!
You could consider a case made of a material that cannot flex at all, something with thick aluminium side rails. Then you must ensure you do a good job at fastening it to the deck, steel screws every 100mm.
Putting a layer or two on the underside only won’t help much, You really do need to have a layer on top & bottom if your objective is stiffening. The way to create stiffness is to have “space” between two layers of material that are not elastic.
Think of a steel beam,
The centre part is holding the two plates away from each other, the two plates directly on top of each other would not be stiff. It is the distance between the top & bottom layers that is creating the stiffness.
Thanks for a great answer!
I can get a good price on a roll of CF that would make it possible to have two layers under the board and one over the board (or one on the bottom or two on top of course), do you think this is enough?
The reason that i’m looking at this instead of metal enclosure or a steel beam underneath is for space. I am going for a LARGE battery (12s7p) under the deck and that can’t fit if i have steel beams running on the under side.
A layer top & bottom would help stiffen for sure.
even glass fibre is good enough for this application, prob much cheaper than carbon fiber & doesn’t block radio waves.
No.
@qeliasq A better idea is to stiffen the deck properly with CF. Relying on small screw fixings to transfer loads to a stiffer enclosure is not a great idea.
I CF skinned a Dervish Flex 2 for use as an LDP board. 2/200gsm UD CF top and bottom. Vac bagged onto deck.
Pics here:
