If you have something you want to reassemble frequently, use inserts. If you're putting it together once and intend to use it that way for a long time, threadforming works fine.
If you have something you want to reassemble frequently, use inserts. If you're putting it together once and intend to use it that way for a long time, threadforming works fine.
Did they have any moving parts? Did they experience continuous vibrations and frequent mechanical shocks? For DIY robot arms, fasteners are very often the issue #1, if arms operated more than just for demo purposes.
You would be surprised how many screws will go lose after a a thousand of hours of operation, even in this case.
What I'm saying to you is to make sure something is an actual problem before saying it is. In this case, the fact that the screws are used as self tapping, the screws themselves create the threads, likely combats this. Like a nylock nut.
This isn't what I would do for say, a surgical robotics system, but that's not what this is.
If given the choice of having the design as is, or making it more expensive, more difficult to assemble, and less accessible. I'd choose it as it is.
There are always tradeoffs. I believe the designer made the right ones here.
Before saying they didn't, maybe build one.