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Unread 31-03-2012, 05:33
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Travis Hoffman Travis Hoffman is offline
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FRC #0048 (Delphi E.L.I.T.E.)
Team Role: Engineer
 
Join Date: Sep 2001
Rookie Year: 2001
Location: Warren, Ohio USA
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Re: 2012 Greater Toronto Regional West

Quote:
Originally Posted by Gregor01 View Post
His "closing time" song yesterday in the pits
Oh no he didn't...

This song? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EAS-pvQ06s4

Good advice in that song - "Every new beginning comes from some other beginning's end"...so Aaron, it's a new day!

Polycord walking - looking at your bot pic on CD, it does seem you might be running more belts than you need. We run no more than 4 belt loops (solid core) on any roller, with very good results.

We run two belts on the outside that "cradle" each side of the ball and two closer together along the centerline (sorry...centreline) of the ball that provide primary propulsion. You can see this belt layout in this photo - http://www.chiefdelphi.com/media/photos/37489

How deep are your grooves (how deeeeep aree yourr grooves I realllly neeed to learrrrrrn...)? You probably can't (easily) make the grooves themselves deeper at competition, but maybe removing some belts and attaching some loops of suitable material around the roller on each side of the remaining active grooves may help keep the belts in place? Many teams like to use wheel tread material like wedgetop or roughtop for this application.

Finally, I've got no experience with hollow polycord (I've heard you don't want to be around the metal barbs if a belt ever breaks - sharp little suckers!), but could your belts stand to be cut down a bit and rejoined to add a little more tension? I know belts do stretch over time - we had to trim an inch off of our belts and re-weld in Wisconsin. This solved some shooting consistency and jamming issues we observed in qualifying. Just remember - belts that are too loose are prone to walking and letting balls jam up the system. However, belts too tight can bog down rollers and put greater load on your conveyor motor(s) - for reference, a single RS-550 into a Banebots 26:1 gearbox powers our conveyor. Finding the perfect tension is key to effective conveyor performance.

I hope this gives you some ideas. Good luck today!
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Travis Hoffman, Enginerd, FRC Team 48 Delphi E.L.I.T.E.
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Last edited by Travis Hoffman : 31-03-2012 at 05:43.