In Need of Banebot Wheels
 

Does anyone know if they have 3-7/8"x0.8", 1/2" Hex mount, 40A banebot wheels? Or anything close? They are for our new intakes for our Recycle Rush bot.

We have other ideas for wheels (Colsons, Custom wheels lined with polyurethane), but the banebot wheels are ideal. We just want to know what our options are.

Re: In Need of Banebot Wheels
 

I will definitely check our shop

Re: In Need of Banebot Wheels
 

The green mushy ones appear to be in stock right now.

Re: In Need of Banebot Wheels
 

Because Banebots was out of stock we went a different route this year. We 3D printed wheels (~4" OD out of PLA @ 60% infill) and used Polyurethane Rubber Tube as the tread (McMaster 87235K79). Just cut to width and stretch over the wheel. We had lips on either side to retain the tread. These worked fantastic and the wear was nothing compared to Green Banebot wheels (we didn't have Orange to try). Just be sure to clean them in between matches. These collector wheels went through 2 regionals, champs, IRI, R2OC and are perfectly fine. We did replace the tread for IRI but we didn't need to.

Re: In Need of Banebot Wheels
 

Sounds like a great idea!

Re: In Need of Banebot Wheels
 

You can also do this with Vexpro pulleys as a wheel (kind of hokey, but works).

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets...NNc/edit#gid=0

It doesn't make a huge amount of sense to use the pulleys as hubs for small OD wheels if you have the ability to hex broach something... but if you don't it's not an awful way to do it (relatively low cost and weight).

Quite a few teams this year made wheels with this tread and loved it.

Re: In Need of Banebot Wheels
 

Anyone have any tips for cutting the polyurethane cleanly?

Re: In Need of Banebot Wheels
 

We put it around a chunk of plastic rod we had lying around and cut it on a band saw. Worked very well. But basically wastes the rod (creates nice hockey pucks). You probably could just cut it with a band saw without the rod and be fine.

I'm sure there's a better way.

Re: In Need of Banebot Wheels
 

During my pit walk at St. Louis this year, I got a chance to talk to a few teams that used similar wheels.

One of the nicer methods of creating these wheels seemed to be to push the tube onto the hub, put the assembly in a lathe, and cut off the excess plastic. If this proves to be unstable, the above idea with putting a plastic piece inside all the way might be better.

Re: In Need of Banebot Wheels
 

The company that made our wheels put the tube of urethane on a plug in a lathe and cut it with a exacto knife lathe tool.

Re: In Need of Banebot Wheels
 

This is what we did at real low speed with a razor blade clamped to the tool post.

Re: In Need of Banebot Wheels
 

You wouldn't happen to have any images of these wheels would you? Also some of the wheels without tread attached

Re: In Need of Banebot Wheels
 

My old taem used blue McMaster drive rollers for our intake this year. We tested the intake to death, trying almost every traction material and wheel we could get our hands on. At first it seemed like nothing beat orange / blue Banebots, but then when Banebots ran out of stock, we put these McMaster wheels on. These wheels work the same if not slightly better. Trust me, they're worth it. And you'll never have to replace them due to wear!

You may have seen these wheels on frisbee shooters in 2013; I think 341, 2056, 1114, 254, among others all had them. 2056 used one as a shooter wheel in 2012 as well. They're pretty nice. The only catch is you have to make a hub for them, though I've heard you can make a Vex VersaHub work in a pinch.

http://www.mcmaster.com/#drive-rollers/=y9865l

You'll want PN 2477K36. We used 60A durometer.

Re: In Need of Banebot Wheels
 

Collector:
Attachment 19232

Wheel w/ Tread:
Attachment 19233

Wheel w/o Tread:
Attachment 19234

Vex Versa Wheel w/ tread. This was used on our practice bot since February. Never been changed. The notch at the bottom of the tread is from it rubbing against a bolt before we noticed. We went with 3D printed wheels for weight.
Attachment 19235

Re: In Need of Banebot Wheels
 

I'm curious as to the difference between these and the ones similar to what we used (McMaster 87235K79). From a cost comparison at same width wheels you are talking ~$8.30/wheel vs ~$30/wheel. For our collector we used the 40A.

Re: In Need of Banebot Wheels
 

So did you make a tire essentially with the none adhesive belt. Did you melt the belt together?

Re: In Need of Banebot Wheels
 

The tire seems to be tube and not a strip. Same polyurethane tube a handful of teams used this year.

Re: In Need of Banebot Wheels
 

It is a rubber tube. Comes 4" OD x 3" ID (McMaster has numerous sizes and lengths). We cut 1" sections from the 6" long tube and stretched it onto the wheel. No adhesive, screws, rivets, etc. needed.

Re: In Need of Banebot Wheels
 

We used the same polyurethane material, but for hubs, we lathed the tread off of old Banebots 3-7/8" wheels and attached with adhesive and screws. We'd do this again, in a pinch. We recycled, in a rush. :cool:

Re: In Need of Banebot Wheels
 

The polyurethane material is definitely the way to go. We tested pretty much everything out there and that was the most durable, highest traction materiel we could find for manipulating both totes and rcs. The trick is keeping them clean. Wiping them down in between in match does the trick. The best thing about it is that you can get for any much any size intake roller you need maxing out at 4 inches. We just stretched it over a 4 inch andymark performance wheel because that's what we had laying around at the shop. It required no adhesives just relied on the friction between the materiel and the hub to hold it and it worked great. The only thing we did was machine it down drastically to save weight. 179 Used them as well at IRI and they 3d printed plastic hubs for them. Originally they tried to make them out of abs but the hubs where not holding up do to the loads and impacts however after they switched to pla they held up great. Maybe someone from 179 can provide a little more incite on printing methods ie infill, wall thickness,and print direction.

Re: In Need of Banebot Wheels
 

The ingenuity and different thinking shown in this thread is inspiring, and will make my life easier during build season.

I always find these kind of threads extremely useful! Keep the ideas rolling.

Re: In Need of Banebot Wheels
 

Yeah we are thinking about doing this if other options are unavailable. Thanks for the info!

Re: In Need of Banebot Wheels
 

Yeah, our intakes were the weakest part of our robot during the season so they really need a redesign. Thanks for all the ideas you all proposed! I have no one from my team to consult right now, but I feel convinced about the polyurethane method.

Re: In Need of Banebot Wheels
 

Just throwing this question out there - since I have no experience with these at all...but how would Colson wheels compare? It seems a much more affordable option than the expensive polyurethane material from McM.

Re: In Need of Banebot Wheels
 

I would imagine Colson wheels have a significantly lower CoF on a tote or can than a softer polyurethane compound.

Re: In Need of Banebot Wheels
 

Agreed. The polyurethane has a non-sticky tackiness that grips things very well which other treads don't seem to. The 2010 balls, 2013 disks, 2015 bins, etc...

All said and done a mcmaster based polyurethane custom wheel is about 2-3 times the cots of a banebots wheel, but will last far far longer and performs great deal better. The relatively thick tread has some give/compression which helps as well.

Colsons are slightly cheaper, would last presumably as long, but not perform nearly as well (they're really a different kind of tread with different design constraints).

Re: In Need of Banebot Wheels
 

We used similar material on our shooter wheels in 2014. However we used strips instead of the tube. For hubs, we just used standard VEXpro 4" traction wheels, that way we could easily integrate them into our robot using the Versa hubs and hex shaft, without having to make any custom parts.

Re: In Need of Banebot Wheels
 

We had thought about using the adhesive backed strips of the poly-urethane from McMaster that has been mentioned in this thread. Is this what 1114 used on their shooter wheels? Or were the strips attached by other methods? Such as rivets or bolts?

Re: In Need of Banebot Wheels
 

Would anyone happen to know how much larger/smaller you want the tubing to be compared to whatever you slide them onto? From what I've heard, you want something slightly smaller than the diameter of what you're going to slide onto, and you need to inflate it slightly so it slides onto it.

Re: In Need of Banebot Wheels
 

We did not use the adhesive backed versions; we riveted the material on instead.

Re: In Need of Banebot Wheels
 

We tried the adhesive backed versions on manipulators in the past but even after giving it plenty of time to cure it did not want to stay on while under load. We tried using a couple of fastening methods as well but it would usually end up tearing out when under load. This was using strips that where 1 inch wide and with a thickness of 3/8ths of an inch. How wide were your strips and how did you fasten them? How often? Any issues with it tearing out?

Re: In Need of Banebot Wheels
 

About what rpm were you spinning at?

Re: In Need of Banebot Wheels
 

5254 used colsons for their collectors the entire year, and with the modifications made for IRI copying 1114's collector geometry, they were extremely effective at intaking totes at near any angle.

I'm a firm believer that most of the time the small improvements you make in material choice to solve problems might be better solved much of the time by a geometry change. Incrementally improving a middling design can be good, but often scrapping the middling design and taking a different approach can often be more effective.

Re: In Need of Banebot Wheels
 

1592 completely agrees. But material choices is the next thing down the line on a list of things that can improve the functionality and use life of subsystems on your robot.

Re: In Need of Banebot Wheels
 

Any chance you have the part number of the specific type of polyurethane strip you used.

Re: In Need of Banebot Wheels
 

I believe it's on McMaster as Soborothane (or I'm getting confused with a different part of an 1114 robot)

Re: In Need of Banebot Wheels
 

I do! P/N: 8834K511

http://www.mcmaster.com/#catalog/121/3586/=ya56jq

Re: In Need of Banebot Wheels
 

We over sized the diameter of our hubs by about %10. We had no issues with slipping or installation.

Here is a pic of our wheels if anyone is interested https://scontent-lga1-1.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-xpa1/t31.0-8/10256793_10155208355065576_3280327124933048631_o.j pg
Urethane is 30A and the hub is resin cast.