Colson CAD folder - available for all

I've been collecting some CAD models for commonly used Colson wheels since they've been becoming popular in FRC and the CAD is pretty difficult to get a hold of, and I've decided to share my collection: https://drive.google.com/folderview?id=0BxNpey1R08BIZlNwYVpMeW9CWW8&usp=sha ring

Wheels I have so far:

3" x 1.5" Performa grey tread
4" x .875" Performa grey tread
4" x 1.25" Performa grey tread
4" x 1.5" Performa grey tread
4" x 2" Performa grey tread

The 3" x 1.5", 4" x 1.5", and the 4" x 2" are all compatible with the WCP Colson hubs. The rest need to bored out to a 1 3/16" bore, but since it's a common size it shouldn't be too difficult if you have the resources. For the shorter ones you may need to shave the hub down a bit, but it'll still work fine. As for the 4" x 2" wheel, the hub will be slightly short, but it will still support the wheel just fine.

If you have requests for wheel types and sizes to get, I'd be more than happy to work on finding an appropriate CAD file for the wheel.

Hope this is useful!

[JeremyLansing]

Thanks for posting these, they sure beat the disks I have been using as placeholders!

[asid61]

Oh, thank you so much! CAD for Colson wheels are so hard to find.
Would you know where to find a cad file for the 3.5", 2.5" and 2" wheels? I used those in a couple designs but wasn't sure if the dimensions were correct.

Originally Posted by asid61

Oh, thank you so much! CAD for Colson wheels are so hard to find.
Would you know where to find a cad file for the 3.5", 2.5" and 2" wheels? I used those in a couple designs but wasn't sure if the dimensions were correct.

Give me wheel widths for each and I can get them all for you when I get back home. It's a long process I'm starting to automate to make easier.

[Nate Laverdure]

Originally Posted by Andrew Lawrence

Give me wheel widths for each and I can get them all for you when I get back home. It's a long process I'm starting to automate to make easier.

What is that process? Are you generating models based on dimensioned drawings that you found somewhere?

Thanks for the models.

Originally Posted by Nate Laverdure

What is that process? Are you generating models based on dimensioned drawings that you found somewhere?

Thanks for the models.

It involves finding a real-life product that uses a caster that used that specific wheel, finding CAD for said product, and extracting the wheel CAD.

[sanddrag]

I've pulled models from the Colson Caster Website without any issue.

Originally Posted by sanddrag

I've pulled models from the Colson Caster Website without any issue.

I tried that and the system would keep crashing.

[Carrington]

Originally Posted by Andrew Lawrence

I tried that and the system would keep crashing.

You must create an account in order to download the 3D models. It's a free and easy process that give you access to pretty much every colson model you would ever need in a variety of file formats. After you have created an account simply select a wheel and you will see an option to "Create 3D Model" in the lower left corner. The Create 3D Model button itself is actually just a button to update the model based off the properties of the caster you have selected so if you hit that button it will seem like nothing is happening when in reality it is updating the model you are looking to download. For FRC purposes this is usually not very useful outside of selecting wheel size considering you are most likely going to delete most features except for the wheel itself. You want to use the download section which is directly below the Create 3D Model button. From there you select the file format and hit the download button which will create the file for you to download.

Originally Posted by Carrington

You must create an account in order to download the 3D models. It's a free and easy process that give you access to pretty much every colson model you would ever need in a variety of file formats. After you have created an account simply select a wheel and you will see an option to "Create 3D Model" in the lower left corner. From there you select the file format and hit the download button which will create the file for you to download.

I have an account - I looked into it when I read Sanddrag's post and found I had a funky version of java. Uninstalled and installed again and now it works fine.

[z_beeblebrox]

Thank you for these models. I'm using them in the butterfly drive I'm designing.

[skottmorris]

I was skeptical about this CAD library, but you just need to pick the series of wheel you are working with, the type of bearing and the rest does not matter. Their library will give you a full caster, but you can just open the wheel by itself to get any wheel you want from this site. Worked great for me.

[cadandcookies]

Thank you for putting the work into this! It really is a pain to track them down, so I (and I'm sure many others) really appreciate you putting this folder together!

[TheHolyHades1]

Thanks so much for doing this! Very useful indeed.

As someone else posted, are there dimensioned drawings you found somewhere, or are you taking the dimensions off of purchased wheels or something of the sort? You mentioned automating the process - I'm not exactly sure how you're doing it, but I know there's a feature in Solidworks known as design tables. There may be something similar in Inventor (if you're using it) you could look at using to help aid the process?

Edit: I'm not sure why I thought you were using Inventor.

[asid61]

Originally Posted by Andrew Lawrence

Give me wheel widths for each and I can get them all for you when I get back home. It's a long process I'm starting to automate to make easier.

http://www.robotmarketplace.com/prod...W-BPDWC05.html 3 x 1.5"
http://www.robotmarketplace.com/prod...W-BPDWC03.html 2.5 x 1.5"
http://www.robotmarketplace.com/prod...W-BPDWC02.html 2 x 0.875"