Racing Wheels
 

Hi,

We're looking to buy a racing wheel for our new team. What racing wheels do you guys use?

Thanks.

Re: Racing Wheels
 

Define "racing" wheel.

If you want sheer speed, slightly deflated pneumatic wheels should do the trick.

Re: Racing Wheels
 

The first question to ask is: What do you want these wheels for?

"Racing" is not a usual descriptor for most FRC wheels. Usually traction and maneuverability at low to medium speeds are more important than maintaining control at high speeds, or than raw acceleration from a stop. Also, you must consider what surface(s), irregularities, and slope(s) you may encounter. Most teams have used nearly as many different types of wheels in competition as they have played seasons. For example, 3946 has used:

• 2012 Rebound Rumble: 6 @ 6" Wedgetop (planned to play defense)
• 2013 Ultimate Ascent: 2 @ 6" solid rubber and 2 @ 6" omnis
• 2014 Aerial Assist: 4 @ 6" Mecanum
• 2015 Recycle Rush: 5 @ 4" DuraOmni (H-drive)

In none of these cases was "racing" a top goal. If you do want to race, you still need to consider the surface and the turns in the track; Drag racing, Formula 1, and NASCAR all use very different tires for pretty obvious reasons.

Re: Racing Wheels
 

Ok, I'll bite....I have some old aluminum slot racing wheels on my old Chevy race car.

Re: Racing Wheels
 

Do you mean a racing wheel for your driver station?

Re: Racing Wheels
 

Do you mean wheels for a robot or usb wheels for a driver station?

Re: Racing Wheels
 

We should take bets on whether the OP meant a game controller style racing wheel, or a fast wheel for a robot that is going to race. I originally thought the former, but it looks like the latter have some support :D
Communicating your questions clearly is a valuable skill. It just takes some practice.

Re: Racing Wheels
 

Sorry I wasn't clear.

I meant a USB game-controller wheel for the drivers station.

Why do you want a usb driving wheel. As a driver who has a wheel at home I can tell you driving an frc robot with that would be difficult. They are made to have you feel like your driving in a car but I always found controllers easier. Wheels are fun but your driver will probably be able to perform better with a joystick or an Xbox controller.

Re: Racing Wheels
 

I've seen them at target and gamestop occasionally. Try searching on amazon or ebay.

Re: Racing Wheels
 

Someone should tell that to 16...

Re: Racing Wheels
 

Sweet!!

Re: Racing Wheels
 

A good application for the racing wheel would be a turret shooter. The mechanism could turn to the desired location and return to center when you let go.

Re: Racing Wheels
 

...or you could just use a potentiometer.

Re: Racing Wheels
 

Yeah, having the bigger wheel helps with precision. and having other buttons attached is useful. No need to reinvent the wheel! Pun intended!

Re: Racing Wheels
 

I personally don't like the idea of the buttons' positions changing as the wheel rotates, but to each his (or her) own.

Re: Racing Wheels
 

Our team is strongly against using racing wheels to drive the robot, however I've talked to a couple teams (846 and 1538) that used racing wheels to drive their robots. From what they said, using that as a controller takes a bit of getting used to, especially if your driver is used to the simple tank layout. It's definitely worth playing out with different control schemes. Remember that just because you bought yourself a wheel doesn't mean you should necessarily use it for every single FRC game.

Re: Racing Wheels
 

Or 971

Re: Racing Wheels
 

I'm pretty convinced that an RC style controller is about as good as it gets. We did an experiment a few years ago where all the potential drivers tried to use the RC controller vs the traditional dual joystick approach, and everyone preferred the RC controller. It's hard to go back to tank drive after you use a wheel.

Re: Racing Wheels
 

Any suggested models? I'm game to try it as they aren't terribly expensive but I'd like to cut up one that might work instead of just getting plastic shards all over the place for no reason.

Re: Racing Wheels
 

148 won a championship in 2008 using an R/C controller like that one.

Re: Racing Wheels
 

Or 254 and 60 (at least in the past, I know they've used 'em).

Re: Racing Wheels
 

The lower end Futaba controllers are what we've used in the past. They are all pretty similar; plastic housing with a potentiometer for the throttle and a potentiometer for the wheel. The ones used in the hobby go up in price as features are added, but you just need the housing and the throttle/steering sensors, so cheaper models tend to work ok. (watch out for really really cheap ones though... we had an absurdly inexpensive brand X USB one to play with that we got online, and the resolution for steering and throttle was extremely low. I think it used an IR sensor and a stepped gray-scale pattern on the throttle/steering wheel. It was very unpleasant to use.)

We've wired the pots into analog inputs for the OI in past years. Last year we took an approach that the Bit Buckets came up with, and wired the potentiometers into two of the joystick channels of a gutted logitech gamepad, so we had a USB steering RC controller.