Colson 101
 

Over the past few months I have been hearing a lot about these great wheels called Colson's. I have a few questions about them...

-Why are they so great? because I'm hearing a lot of "COLSONS ARE THE BEST" and I want to know why they are so good! These wheels sound amazing from what people have been saying!

-Which one's are the best to use? I've seen a lot of flat grey tread, are they the Encore wheels or the Performa Tread, I can't tell.

-How are team's mounting hubs on to them? I've herd of just press fitting a hub into the wheels them self's, like the ones sold on WCP. What are other effective ways to mount a hub to these guys?

-How price effective are they? cheap not cheap? Because on their site you have to get a quote on what you want to buy and I do not know what colson wheels are good for what?

Also if you have any other tips or tricks for colson's, they would be greatly appreciated.

Re: Colson 101
 

They're a little heavy but I like them. http://www.robotmarketplace.com/prod...on_wheels.html

All you have to do for a hub is take some aluminum round bar, turn it to size (for a press fit), knurl it, drill and ream it, part it off, and broach it, and press it in. If you do it right, the hub doesn't even need a flange on it;, just a straight cylinder through the wheel's bore.

They're not the absolute grippiest tire out there, but they grip rather well and wear well. They'll last all season long even driving on pavement, parade routes, demos, etc. The zero-maintenance aspect was my reason for using them last season. I'm over having to rivet on conveyor belt tread.

Just beware if you attempt to machine the wheels themselves. They may have small air pocket voids inside from the molding process.

Re: Colson 101
 

This is the second year FRC2168 is running Colson Performa wheels on our robot. We designed and manufactured our own hubs last year, and the second iteration of the design is what you see on the West Coast Products website. FRC2168's 2012 robot is running the WCP hubs and bearings, we were impressed with the quality of the machining and have had no issues thus far. This robot actually has a total of 11 Colson Performa wheels on it. 8 (5"x1.5") in the drivetrain, 2 (6"x1.5") for the shooter wheels, and 1 (4"x1.5") on the bridge manipulator. So they are also really grippy against this years game piece.

These hubs are designed to fit the 1.5" wide wheels. Last year we ran 4" wheels, this year we wanted some extra ground clearance and went with the 5" option. I can tell you that I don't intend to design a drivetrain without Colsons unless something major happens.

The WCP hub is designed for a 3/8" dead axle, and in the future WCP will most likely be offering a live axle option as well. The hubs allow you to put Colson wheels right onto a kitbot, which we believe is a great option and a really great way to evaluate the wheels for yourselves. If you want a live axle hub, its basically just "plug" with either a hex or key broach, and the OD sized for a press fit. They are a little heavier than other wheel options (pneumatic wheels are heavier though), but the cost is low, and 1 set should last you an entire season. That means no changing tread between matches.

Colson Performa wheels are available through a variety of sources, I've heard that a number of teams have gone to local suppliers. FRC2168 buys our wheels from Robotmarketplace.com. They are also available from McMaster and you'll get them faster but the price is not as good.

The performance of the wheels has been great. The grip is approximately the same as roughtop on carpet, but on other surfaces the Colsons have the advantage (like the bridges this year). Some teams have cut tread grooves into the surface of the wheels are report an increase in traction, however we have never seen a need for more traction (at least not yet).

Colson Performa wheels have been the wheel of choice in Battlebots for as long as I can remember. Teams such as 190, 228, 2168, 1771, 11, 125 have been using Colson wheels successfully for many years. More are more teams are looking at using them, and we welcome them to the club.

Re: Colson 101
 

How is the traction on the key and on the carpet with these wheel versus a standard AM performance wheel with rough top conveyor belting?

We have been having an issue of wheel slip on the key when we start to drive to the bridge, and I am wondering if these would provide better or worse traction and what the tradeoffs would be.

Thanks.

Re: Colson 101
 

Adam,
In our experience the Colsons out perform the roughtop conveyor on smooth surfaces including the key and the bridge. On the carpet they seem to be fairly equal. I strongly suggest picking up some for testing.

Re: Colson 101
 

Adam,

We are using Colson wheels for our two center wheels (one is dropped, one is raised). We found that the traction on polycarbonate and HDPE is much better than Roughtop, and quickly decided to use them over IFI wheels for the dropped wheel.

Re: Colson 101
 

We too have found that the grip the Colons have on the PC and HDPE portions of the field (bridge and key) to be awesome. We have known about Colson's performance characteristics on these types of surfaces for several years, which is what made using them this year a no brainer.

Cutting grooves into the wheels also has shown an increase in traction, to the point where I believe our Colsons will "out grip" any standard roughtop/wedgetop wheel in the same width (1.5").

-Brando

Re: Colson 101
 

So on a standard 27x54 flat carpet field, what advantages will Colsons give over regular treaded wheel?

Re: Colson 101
 

Justin / Andrew / Brandon,

Thanks for the great information. I will pursue this option with the team to see if this will improve our performance consistency in Hybrid.

Re: Colson 101
 

Perhaps we should have kept HOT in the dark about this matter... :rolleyes:

I'm also wondering about this, because the wheels my team has experience with are either 8" pneumatics from Granger, KOP grey tread wheels, mecanums, or the lunacy wheels. I'm not sure I could convince the team to switch to Colsons unless I could convey there is an absolute advantage to their use over other wheels, including fabrication of our own wheels.

Re: Colson 101
 

Has anyone tried a Colson on a swerve module?

Re: Colson 101
 

Team 40 used them the last few years in their modules.

Re: Colson 101
 

I would think there would be a wear and tear advantage over the treaded wheels with the side loads.

Re: Colson 101
 

The awesome swerve drive done by 3928 this year utilizes Colsons.

http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/sh...hreadid=104504

Re: Colson 101
 

Does anyone know where I can find a CAD model for these wheels? I know they're easy enough to make on my own, but I'm a stickler for detail.

Re: Colson 101
 

Everything is an engineering trade off in some way, wheel selection is no different. "Absolute Advantage" is subjective.

Pros that we've found for the Colson Performa wheels:
- Low Cost
- Never change tread
- Approximately match Roughtop on Carpet (un-grooved)
- Outperform on other surfaces (Plexi, HDPE, diamond plate)
- Some Shock Absorbing capability
- They "warm up" during a match (gearheads may find this interesting)
- COTS dead axle hubs available (this was previously the barrier to entry for most teams)

You can get CAD Models from the Colson Website. You may have to download the entire caster then save just the wheels, this is typically what we have done. I do have a model for the 4"x1.5" on my home computer if needed.

Re: Colson 101
 

Team 228's 2010 Swerve Used 'Cut' Colsons, Team 148's 2008 swerve used Colsons, Along with 3928 (2012) and Team 40 (2011) as already mentioned.

In a simple pushing test in the pre-season (I sat on carpet, had the drive push against my feet for ~15 seconds) I found that the wheel temperature got to ~100-105* F depending on which drive wheel it was (30* increase from room temperature of ~70*). There was a noticeable improvement in performance immediately following this test, almost as if the drive had more 'bite' on the carpet.

Re: Colson 101
 

Is there a source for COTS live axle Colson hubs? Not that these are terrible difficult to make, just wondering.

Re: Colson 101
 

No COTS source yet. I believe RC will be offering them in the future.

2415 has used colsons for the past 2 years as well. Last year we swapped to them after using custom treaded wheels and the increase in performance was noticeable. This year we strayed to pneumatic wheels to deal with the bump and were incredibly disappointed with the performance. We have just finished swapping to colsons for a weight savings of 2.5lbs and again the increase in performance is night and day. We will not be using any other wheels in the future.

Re: Colson 101
 

All my experience has been with the standard KOP wheels, as well as the andy mark Plaction wheels with both rough and wedge top. I've always found the wedge top to out preform on HDPE and other non carpeted materials but the rough top to maintain traction better on carpet. It seems to be relatively widely noticed that the Colson wheels out preform the rough top on HDPE and has similar performance on carpet but has anyone compared them to the wedge top?

Re: Colson 101
 

Colsons stick much better than roughtop or wedgetop to anything other than carpet.

Re: Colson 101
 

Rougtop and Wedgetop are extremely similar because they are made from all the same materials (either nitrile or natural rubber). The geometry of the tread pattern does create slightly different performance characteristics, but compared to different wheel types (pneumatic, colson, etc) the differences are huge.

-Brando

Re: Colson 101
 

If you are local and interested in checking out both the dead axle hub or a hex live axle plug, FRC2168 always has spares to show to other teams (and judges).

We've already competed at NYC, and will be at the CT regional in a couple days. Feel free to stop by.

There are also a bunch of pictures on our teams website and on my personal/robotics blog.

Re: Colson 101
 

3620 used 8" Colson Performa wheels with the WCP hub this year. It required an outboard bearing adapter, but that was easy to make out of Delrin.

Look here for pictures.

Re: Colson 101
 

Robot Marketplace also sells colsons with a sprocket and bearing pressed into them. http://www.robotmarketplace.com/prod...it_wheels.html

Re: Colson 101
 

I've heard rumors and claims over the year over the actual numbers and how high they are (for traction), but have yet to see anyone do real testing and post.

Anyone done it?

Re: Colson 101
 

If you like Colson, but don't want to bother with separate hub manufacturing or purchase, check out NPC wheels which have very similar characteristics and have hub included:
http://www.robotmarketplace.com/prod...lrin_hubs.html

1712 used NPC wheels in its drivetrain in 2006, 2007, 2008, and 2010. During those years the wheels performed very well on all kinds of surfaces, including those similar to what is being used this year, and in all kinds of configurations (4-wheel, 6-wheel, wide-body, long-body).

As pointed out you will expend a little weight here, but when I was in a decision-making position, I always thought it was weight well spent for a wheel that will last, get around, help you score, and stand up to playing aggressive defense when/if a game or strategy calls for it. I'm also sure there are plenty of places you could take some mass out of the wheels if you wanted/needed to as well.

And while we never grooved the NPC wheels to improve traction on a competition robot, I'm well aware of the success Brando and others have had with this technique and did like what I saw with some off-season lab testing several years back.

Re: Colson 101
 

For what its worth, the NPC wheels are colson wheels just with a delrin hub inserted. If you dont have the machining resources theyre great; however, if you have access to a lathe it is much more economical to do a simple plug. This gives you the option of hex broaching as well so you dont have to deal with keyways.

Re: Colson 101
 

We used them on our shooter this year, as well. We opted for KoP wheels (then later two omnis on one side) for our drive train for weight and size constraints. We may change that in the future.

Re: Colson 101
 

Agreed on the cost if you're into those manufacturing techniques.

Re: Colson 101
 

Absolutely. It's all about trade-offs. Their is very little in the world I hate as much as dealing with keys though so its a no brainer for us. Back when we ran colsons in 07 we went with the NPC ones though and they held up great.

Re: Colson 101
 

Art Dutra's results here.

JVN's data here.

This is our first year with colsons. We have 6x1.5" wheels and the robot is much harder to push laterally vs our 4x1" roughtop wheels from last year. We made simple press in plugs and didn't even knurl them.

Re: Colson 101
 

How would one go about cutting the diamond pattern in the tread like what Art posted?

Conceptually, I can think of a way to draw the pattern on the wheel and then use a mill -- but is there a more efficient way to do it?

Re: Colson 101
 

Also, how deep should the pattern be?

Re: Colson 101
 

I would think a jig and a saw would do the trick.

Re: Colson 101
 

Ah, I can see how to do it very easily with a table saw. Good catch.

Re: Colson 101
 

Where do you guys buy your Colsons? (Online shippers or storefront in the Philadelphia, PA area) The only distributor the Colson website identified in our area was a wholesaler and uninterested in selling us 4.

I've checked like Robotmarketplace and McMaster, but we're looking for Ecoformas not Performas; specifically 4"x1.25" Encore Ecoforma Flat Grey Tread - less bearing (E2.00004.476).

Re: Colson 101
 

This is information I got directly from calling Colson earlier this season:

The Ecoforma and Performa lines of wheels are the same thing. The Performas are marketed in NAFTA while the Ecoformas are for other regions.

The reason I wanted the Ecoformas specifically is probably the same as you, weight. When speaking to this customer service agent she told me they are the same wheel, and the information on the website regarding the weight of the Ecoformas may be incorrect.

-Brando

Re: Colson 101
 

any reason for not going with performas? occasionally colsons pop up on https://www.surpluscenter.com/

grainger sells off brand colsons (albion brand). the durometer is the same as a colson performa.

most of the time I buy my colsons from robot marketplace, but i've bought some off surplus center too.

edit: you could also look into using two of the orange banebots wheels on the same axle. it's a 40a durometer wheel so it should get more grip than a 65a durometer colson. i wouldn't recommend the 30a green banebots wheels, they wear down like crazy. also don't worry about the hole on the banebots wheels not being centered. it wears down to a usable "roundness" after some use...

Re: Colson 101
 

Robot Marketplace sells them:

http://www.robotmarketplace.com/prod...on_wheels.html

WCP is going to have 1/2" Hex Plugs for these in the next month or two. Along with a keyed version of the plug for robot marketplace/their battle bots line.

-RC

Re: Colson 101
 

Neither of these are really useful information. To make a comparison one must perform the same test on colson wheels, traction wheels, and other other wheels one wishes to compare.

Merely throwing out CoF isn't enough.

Re: Colson 101
 

Linco Caster in South El Monte, California has them and has been pleasant to deal with in the past.

Re: Colson 101
 

After reading this entire thread, I am now convinced that we will in all probability, use Colsons next year.

Re: Colson 101
 

Glenn,

Feel free to stop by and check them out on our robot at Lonestar.

Re: Colson 101
 

Wow, thanks. We were looking for the weight. I think the Ecoforma weight may be correct though, because Robotmarketplace Performas are 4oz/ea. I think we're getting one to play around with; we'll see.

Re: Colson 101
 

They get alot lighter when you get rid of the entire middle :p

Re: Colson 101
 

Adding a steel sleeve probably negates a lot of that savings though :rolleyes:

Re: Colson 101
 

A steel sleeve AND a CIM :rolleyes:

Re: Colson 101
 

well you need a CIM somewhere anyway.....
and the sleeve is pretty thin....

Re: Colson 101
 

Im just glad you used a colson instead of some goofy custom wheel

Re: Colson 101
 

Hey you guys thanks for all of you're responses they have been very helpful! I think we will experiment with colsons over the summer and fall. If we Do I will post updates/ what ever we do with them.

And R.C. I think the plugs will be an excellent thing for the market I diffidently would be interested in looking into them for a live axle set up.