[Brandon Holley]

Originally Posted by Cash4587

Whoops. I was thinking of steam locomotives. And here is my reasoning, steam locomotives built to pull passenger trains had larger wheels to have a higher top speed to get to places on time. If the same passenger locomotive was then later retrofitted with smaller wheels because it needed to pull freight, it now had more torque to pull that extra weight that passenger trains didn't have. Sorry, that is why I said "Smaller wheels = more torque".. I will be clearer next time

What you are describing has the exact same application to FRC (and life...)

The steam locomotive has a given power output, and a given output RPM at the wheel. Unless you change the locomotives power source somehow (bigger furnace? I dont know how steam engines actually function) you have to work with that given amount of power and speed output.

If you have a given RPM, and you throw 'bigger' wheels on the output, the train will be faster (more distance traveled per each rotation of the wheel). If you take the same output shaft and put smaller wheels on it, the train will be slower (less distance traveled per each rotation of the wheel). However- the speed is being traded off for a proportional amount of torque gain (like you stated).

The same concept applies to FRC- it just happens to be most teams design the RPM and torque of their gearbox outputs to be optimal for the specific size wheel they are using.

-Brando