Drive Wheels

[Justin Shelley]

Our team used a 6wd pneumatic drive train this year. We had a horrible time turning but when sideways we were practically unmovable.
I was wondering what other teams have had the best luck with in terms of traction and mobility. Thanks for any and all help/info

[ehfeinberg]

Many teams have great luck with similar conditions which you described. With your 6WD, did you happen to lower the center pair of wheels at all?

With your question, many teams have been having great success with the new vexpro versa wheels. Teams also have great success with colson wheels.

[Walter Deitzler]

Our team used a 6wd pneumatic drive train this year. We had a horrible time turning but when sideways we were practically unmovable.
I was wondering what other teams have had the best luck with in terms of traction and mobility. Thanks for any and all help/info

3284 from Camdenton, MO, and 2337 from Michigan were to the two best examples I have seen yet that offer both traction and turning.

3397 was more maneuverable than pushy, but we could push in a pinch.

[Justin Shelley]

We lowered our middle wheels like you're supposed to in a 6wd WCD drivetrain but for some reason it didn't help out much

[Teamcodeorange]

If you insist on pneumatic tires, you must have (very) dropped center wheels to turn well at the wheel's specified pressure.

[Walter Deitzler]

We lowered our middle wheels like you're supposed to in a 6wd WCD drivetrain but for some reason it didn't help out much

How much was the drop? I saw you were going with pneumatic wheels this year, and, if the drop was not big enough, it could cause turning problems.

[ehfeinberg]

We lowered our middle wheels like you're supposed to in a 6wd WCD drivetrain but for some reason it didn't help out much

How much? Were all of your pneumatic tires also always fully inflated?

With Pneumatic wheels you might have to lower the center wheel more because the weight of the robot will cause your center wheel to squish (and lower the rest of the robot), thus eliminating some of the drop you added.

If you also were to deflate your outside wheels slightly, you should also notice a increase in mobility.

Edit: looks like the people above me came to the same conclusion

[Justin Shelley]

How much was the drop? I saw you were going with pneumatic wheels this year, and, if the drop was not big enough, it could cause turning problems.

We realize our drop wasn't big enough for the pneumatic wheels :( this will be fixed for off season

[Justin Shelley]

How much? Were all of your pneumatic tires also always fully inflated?

With Pneumatic wheels you might have to lower the center wheel more because the weight of the robot will cause your center wheel to squish (and lower the rest of the robot), thus eliminating some of the drop you added.

If you also were to deflate your outside wheels slightly, you should also notice a increase in mobility.

We tried playing with the air pressure but it never made a noticeable difference in maneuverability

[ehfeinberg]

We realize our drop wasn't big enough for the pneumatic wheels :( this will be fixed for off season

Just so other teams don't run into the same conclusion, what exactly was your drop? 1/8th? 3/16th?

[Justin Shelley]

Just so other teams don't run into the same conclusion, what exactly was your drop? 1/8th? 3/16th?

I'll measure tomorrow to be for sure but I believe it was about 3/16th of an inch

[Walter Deitzler]

We realize our drop wasn't big enough for the pneumatic wheels :( this will be fixed for off season

What off-season events are you going to? I would love to see you guys at some!

[Justin Shelley]

What off-season events are you going to? I would love to see you guys at some!

We are in the makings of hosting our very own off season event in August this year and would love to see you there!

very likely will be at cowtown also :)

[Walter Deitzler]

We are in the makings of hosting our very own off season event in August this year and would love to see you there!

very likely will be at cowtown also :)

Awesome! We should be attending CTTD, and, if you get me info, Farmington is close enough to St. Louis that we could make our way down there fairly easily. PM me the details when you have them figured out, we would love to attend!

[Anupam Goli]

After using both AM plaction and vexpro traction wheels now, I'm confident in saying that I love the vexpro traction wheels. I don't know what performance boost we would get from using the versa wheels over the Traction wheels with extra grip SBR black roughtop from McMaster, so I think we'll be sticking with these champs.

[Justin Shelley]

After using both AM plaction and vexpro traction wheels now, I'm confident in saying that I love the vexpro traction wheels. I don't know what performance boost we would get from using the versa wheels over the Traction wheels with extra grip SBR black roughtop from McMaster, so I think we'll be sticking with these champs.
I have heard a lot of good news about the vexpro products, and have been considering using both the vexpro ball shifter and the vexpro traction wheels

[Mark Sheridan]

We had a lot of success with colsons this year. We were able to hold our own against teams running rough and wedge top. We did not even add grooves to our wheels. We are going to have to try a higher torque pushing gear with grooved colsons next year.

[Justin Shelley]

We had a lot of success with colsons this year. We were able to hold our own against teams running rough and wedge top. We did not even add grooves to our wheels. We are going to have to try a higher torque pushing gear with grooved colsons next year.

What size wheel did you use?

[JesseK]

We had a lot of success with colsons this year. We were able to hold our own against teams running rough and wedge top. We did not even add grooves to our wheels. We are going to have to try a higher torque pushing gear with grooved colsons next year.

Over your 2 regionals this year, how much rubber wear did you experience? Do you have pictures of a new wheel vs your worn wheels now? Is there any different in diameter between the worn & new wheel ?

[EricDrost]

As for wheels, I still think Colsons are king. They're incredibly easy to use with hubs from: West Coast Products (http://wcproducts.net/hubs/). We use 4" wheels with our own tread cut into them.

[Akash Rastogi]

3929 also had a great experience with Colsons this season. 4" Colsons in a 6 wheel WCD had minimal wear after two district events.

https://sphotos-b.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-prn1/563349_359437160835692_881089086_n.jpg

10/10 would use again.

[sodizzle]

Anyone using custom wheels? I was wondering what advantages custom wheels give. I've seen quite a few strong teams using 3D printed wheels and cnc'd aluminum wheels.

[Nemo]

It would be hard to beat the performance vs cost and ease of use of VersaWheels. It doesn't get much cheaper than $5 per wheel, and they're easy to connect to the (also inexpensive) hubs, bearings, and sprockets. I wonder if Vex will investigate different polymer materials for their tread since some teams have somehow managed to wear it down. Our team wore down the two front tires after two competitions, but we will be able to spare the $10 to replace them at the Championship. We've been very happy with the traction we get - we ended up slowing the drive down, because it took a bigger gear ratio than expected to get them traction limited.

Has anybody compared traction and durability between AndyMark 4" FIRST Wheels and 4" VersaWheels?

[Mark Sheridan]

What size wheel did you use?

We used the 3.5" wheel.

Over your 2 regionals this year, how much rubber wear did you experience? Do you have pictures of a new wheel vs your worn wheels now? Is there any different in diameter between the worn & new wheel ?

I will try to get some picture later but there was hardly any wear. I remember blue specs of carpet embedded into the wheel . We had spares but we never found a need to swap them. This years drive train was a collaboration with 766. They drove their robot a lot harder (our robot spent half the match climbing), I will ask them to measure their wheels.

[Adam Freeman]

As for wheels, I still think Colsons are king. They're incredibly easy to use with hubs from: West Coast Products (http://wcproducts.net/hubs/). We use 4" wheels with our own tread cut into them.

We thought about using Colsons this year (we really wanted too), but could not figure out how to make a dead axle hub that worked for a 1/2" diameter shaft.

The hub wall thickness get's really thin trying to make room for a 1/2" diameter bearing.

We could have gone with 3/8" steel axles, but did not want to make that drastic a change to our wheel mounting setup.

We ended up using the 4" VEX Versa Wheel, which has been great in all situations outside of driving up the pole for climbing, when we were spinning our wheels on the tape.

We think we fixed that issue by paring a 3.875" blue banebot wheel next to the rear Versa wheel, that seemed to have given us enough traction to start the pole climb.

[Kestin Goforth]

Last year, 1503 used pneumatic wheels in an 8WD config and we found that our drop was not as much as we needed. By over-inflating the inner wheels and under-inflating the outer ones, we had a much better time turning. Though if you do this, be careful not to inflate the inner wheels too much or they can puncture much easier.

[EricH]

330 ran a 6WD all pneumatic (with drop) back in 2006. That lasted less than one event before at least one pair of pneumatics was swapped out for KOP wheels. (I forget if it was one or two, but I know the front wheels were swapped.)

[saikiranra]

We originally went with 3 inch *citation needed* Colson wheels, until we realized that we could use a small bag of zip-ties to prop up the robot (way less than a quarter inch of clearance between the ground and our chassis). We quickly CADed up some nice looking wheels and CNC Milled them out of aluminum. We also riveted on some nice, black rough-top tread for more gripy-ness. It worked and looked great!