Quote:
Originally Posted by LLogan
I do not think that "more torque" is a justifiable advantage of smaller diameter wheels. It's possible to manipulate gear/sprocket ratios to cause a smaller wheel and a larger wheel to have the exact same torque and speed.
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That's exactly the point. Both sizes of wheels are going to require a reduction to get the desired speed. However, you're going to have to have a greater reduction for the bigger wheels than you would for the smaller wheels. The greater reduction means you're going to (somewhere in the system) need to use either a larger gear/sprocket/pully or another stage of reduction (both of which obviously have higher costs in weight, space, and money).
Wheel diameter is not a simple thing to pick. It's highly dependent on your entire drive system and how it is designed. There are situations where I'd want a larger wheel and situations where I'd want a smaller one. It's an engineering trade-off, like everything else.