Shooter wheel covering

[cad321]

Me and my team have been working ruthlessly over the past 2 weeks trying to make our shooter work the best we can. We are using a linear shooter with 2 andymark 8in rubber tread wheels on a mini cim each. We finally got it shooting decently(shooting from the back of the pyramid near the center of the field and only just making it into the 3pt goal) by putting surgical tubing around the wheels to make them like pneumatic wheels for grip and compression. This worked fairly well except that the tubing expands an awful lot and wears down to quicky. We have been experimenting with different ways of getting the same result as the surgical tubing that just doesnt wear as quicky but are at a loss, so we were wondering what you guys have been using on your wheels(if any)?

[lcoreyl]

Originally Posted by cad321

Me and my team have been working ruthlessly over the past 2 weeks trying to make our shooter work the best we can. We are using a linear shooter with 2 andymark 8in rubber tread wheels on a mini cim each. We finally got it shooting decently(shooting from the back of the pyramid near the center of the field and only just making it into the 3pt goal) by putting surgical tubing around the wheels to make them like pneumatic wheels for grip and compression. This worked fairly well except that the tubing expands an awful lot and wears down to quicky. We have been experimenting with different ways of getting the same result as the surgical tubing that just doesnt wear as quicky but are at a loss, so we were wondering what you guys have been using on your wheels(if any)?

It appears you are wanting more compression as if you had pneumatic wheels. Why not put the compressible material on your stationary wall opposite the wheel?

[cad321]

Originally Posted by lcoreyl

It appears you are wanting more compression as if you had pneumatic wheels. Why not put the compressible material on your stationary wall opposite the wheel?

We tried that today by using weather stripping however are results went from the 17 feet or so to 2 feet.

[protoserge]

What does the wall look like opposite the shooter wheel? Are you using any form of grip tape? The KoP grip material works excellent.

A photo might help out here.

[lcoreyl]

Originally Posted by cad321

We tried that today by using weather stripping however are results went from the 17 feet or so to 2 feet.

A picture would be good, a video even better.

-First off, are you saying you shot multiple (i.e. minimum 5) and they went approx the same spot 17ft away, then another minimum of 5 discs with the weather strip and they all landed at approx the same place 2ft away?

-With the weatherstrip, did you play with the compression? Do you have the ability to move the wall opposite your wheel to have any compression you like?

[cad321]

Yes that is how we tested



This here is it at an earlier stage in development however all we did after this was reduce weight, the rear wheel no longer has surgical tubing on it as when they both expanded they rubbed against each other, 2 mini cims now, and we have a Lexan top to prevent ride up of Frisbees. Unfortunately I don't have any recent pics . We will have a look into the KOP grip material. Unfortunately it is march break for us and we don't have access to our shop so no further testing can be done for a week . We did play with the compression as well with our adjustable wall

[lcoreyl]

My suggestions:

1) get rid of the surgical tubing just to remove that as a variable (for this test anyways)

2) try (insert compressible material here) on the wall

3) play with the compression through a full range of barely grabs the disc to "whoa, you sure you want to compress the disc that much"?
-always shoot enough that you KNOW it is repeatably bad before moving on

repeat 2 & 3 with different materials

The disc slipping on the wheel AND the disc slipping on the wall are different variables and you will want to have an grasp on their effects to your shot.

[Brandon_L]

Originally Posted by lcoreyl

3) play with the compression through a full range of barely grabs the disc to "whoa, you sure you want to compress the disc that much"?

Our shooter runs with 1" of disc compression with the pneumatic wheels. Result.

Compression on the wall of the shooter, though, instead of the wheels may be totally different. The compression of the pneumatic wheels help grip the frisbee and throw it better.

Either way, try adding more compression with both a solid material and something compressible on the wall and see what happens.

[lcoreyl]

Originally Posted by Brandon_L

Compression on the wall of the shooter, though, instead of the wheels may be totally different.

It is. they are definitely 2 different variables with different effects. Unfortunately, I think a lot of teams are not fully testing the 2 and missing out on some performance choices they could have if they understand the difference.

Nice bot in the video btw!

[cad321]

Originally Posted by Brandon_L

Our shooter runs with 1" of disc compression with the pneumatic wheels. Result.

Compression on the wall of the shooter, though, instead of the wheels may be totally different. The compression of the pneumatic wheels help grip the frisbee and throw it better.

Either way, try adding more compression with both a solid material and something compressible on the wall and see what happens.

When you say 1in of compression what do you meen by this. When i think of compression i think about if the gap between the edge of the wheels to the wall is the diameter of the disk(what 11in is that), whatever amount you remove from that is the amount of compression. So compression of .25in on an 11in disk the space measured would be 10.75in. The reason i ask is because the 1in you mension seems an awful lot that the way i consider it.

[protoserge]

Originally Posted by cad321

When you say 1in of compression what do you meen by this. When i think of compression i think about if the gap between the edge of the wheels to the wall is the diameter of the disk(what 11in is that), whatever amount you remove from that is the amount of compression. So compression of .25in on an 11in disk the space measured would be 10.75in. The reason i ask is because the 1in you mension seems an awful lot that the way i consider it.

It's entirely possible that the space between the wheel and wall is 10". I wouldn't expect the frisbee to be compressed 1" if this was the case, rather the pneumatic tire deforming a portion of that.

[FrankJ]

With our pneumatic wheel set up, we are actually bearing more on the side of the tire. The tire helps to keep the Frisbee down on the platter. The tire height is optimized for the wheel speed. It has been consistent and we are not seeing a lot of wear on the tire..

[cad321]

I was at the gtr east today and noticed several teams using an adhesive rubber that was fairly hard but still compressibly with a slippery surface. Does anyone know where i might find something like this. Me and some of my team mates were talking today and think it would be a good siding for our adjustable wall. It should allow for some compression but low friction for the frisbe to slide along while being spun and accelerates by the wheels.

[Brandon_L]

Originally Posted by cad321

When you say 1in of compression what do you meen by this. When i think of compression i think about if the gap between the edge of the wheels to the wall is the diameter of the disk(what 11in is that), whatever amount you remove from that is the amount of compression. So compression of .25in on an 11in disk the space measured would be 10.75in. The reason i ask is because the 1in you mension seems an awful lot that the way i consider it.

it is 10" from wall to wheel. The pneumatic wheel does compress a bit but we run 20psi in them, its mostly seen in the frisbee (it deforms quite a bit if you push it through slowly)

[fb39ca4]

Originally Posted by lcoreyl

It appears you are wanting more compression as if you had pneumatic wheels. Why not put the compressible material on your stationary wall opposite the wheel?

This will not help with distance because the point of having a compressible material is to increase the time and amount of frisbee in contact with the wheel. If you don't make the wheel compressible, the frisbee will only touch at that one point where it and the wheel are tangent.