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Unread 11-05-2012, 20:32
flargen507 flargen507 is offline
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Re: 8 Wheel Chassis Design

159 did something similar to this for 2012. To create a strong, light, flexible West Coast Drive, we used 1.5" by 3" aluminum tubes. These were pocketed circularly (a lot) and the wheels were outside. It only needed one tube per side, and even with extensive pocketing it retained structure even under competition abuse. If that's at all helpful to your designs, it worked really well for us. Look up Hawaiian Cadder, he posted the design.

Your design is very interesting. Using traingular pocketing with sheet metal was a good idea, but sheet metal does require the outside wall (although this does improve your turning radius, so more power to you.) I would suggest that the gearboxes be moved to the center to keep the CG (we used the battery as the counterbalence to the shooter). Depending on what type of tread your are using, you may need to increase your center drop to 3/16". If there is any way to use 25 chain instead of 35, this could save you a lot of weight, and 159 had no troubles with the strength of 25 chain. 8WD can turn quite well, but it does need a significant center drop to do so. We used AndyMark supershifters, however I cannot comment on their goodness/badness to Gen I shifters(having never used Gen I's), but so far as I can tell AndyMarks work just fine.

Lastly, if there's any way you can incorporate multiple placements for axles, this could make modifying it very easy for next year's season.