pic: Bling Bling 1817
 

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Cool wheels! What are they made of?

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Those look uber light. Whats the weight on them?

Re: pic: Bling Bling 1817
 

Appears to be 1.17lbs.

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Those are sweet.

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They look really nice, now make them spin:)

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The spokes look a little thin, do you think there's enough structural integrity to support the outside of the wheel?

Looks great guys!!

Re: pic: Bling Bling 1817
 

They are made of 7075 aluminum and the spokes and rims are 100 mils thick.

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Ahh, that's what 7075 gets you... Looks great guys!

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nice wheels. you know ive been wondering do you guys start of with a W x L x H block of aluminum and waterjet it to look like that or what? and secondly how much does that block cost?

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when will that bling be up for sale??? Cause I need to get my hands on some of those

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Well, we don't waterjet them. We use the a CNC (like a computerized end mill). It's kinda a huge waste of material (all but the outer most material comes out as just shavings).... but they look cool and it was all donated material. :D As for how much, we'll have to figure that out before inspection. I mean just price a 8"x8"x2" block of 7075 and that x4 will tell you what the wheels would have cost us.

Re: pic: Bling Bling 1817
 

WOW, These look very nice but are they worth the price??? :confused:

I checked McMaster and a piece of 8" X 8" X 2" 7075 is $290.30 :eek:

With all the respect, I think thats an overkill price for a wheel.

They do look nice thou.:D

David

Re: pic: Bling Bling 1817
 

Just wondering, are you guys planning on making a spare? do you even think there is a chance of failure? (i have never had a chance to put my hands on such high grade aluminum before.)

-Dan Karol

Re: pic: Bling Bling 1817
 

We didn't have to pay for them, it was donated material. In fact it was the only grade of aluminum that was could get donated for this. So if we had used "cheaper" material we would have had to actually go out and buy it. I agree, it would be absurd to actually buy this stuff for these wheels.

We had been worried that they might break if they were dropped or something, so we have been telling the students to be really careful with them. One of the mentors ended up dropping one last night and it was fine. I'm no material expert (or even novice), but the machinist told use that this stuff is about as strong as steel and he actually thinned down our original design because he said it was way excessive.

We had talked about making a spare, but we still have more things we need to get through that shop so we don't want to push our luck :)

As for failure, we are going to try direct drive this year, but there have been some concerns raised that there could be a problem with the key. So we designed the wheels to accept a number of drive options in that case.