Skyway Wheels with AM14U3

[jdaming]

Due to the lack of availability of the AM Pneumatic wheels we are thinking about turning to Skyway for substitutes.

Does anyone have experience using any of their wheels with the AM14U3?

Ordering options located here

I am not sure about their Beadlock tires does anyone have experience with these?

Any tips for mounting their tires? What other parts would I need in addition to the parts listed on the upgrade kit?

[Kevin Sevcik]

First off, call them and tell them you're with a FIRST team. There's a discount.

Second, from what I remember of the Beadlok tires, they're not pneumatic, they're solid rubber. I think it was also rather harder and less grippy than you'd really like for an FRC application.

[waialua359]

Its really sad that there is a shortage of pneumatic wheels. No fault to the supplier. To have to go with a less than optimal alternative, if that ends up being the case with robot testing......oh boy.

[nuggetsyl]

What do you want to know about the SkyWay wheels? We use an all gear drive for them but it could easily be done with chains.

[Dan Petrovic]

Originally Posted by nuggetsyl

What do you want to know about the SkyWay wheels? We use an all gear drive for them but it could easily be done with chains.

A couple of questions:

I know you guys like to turn them down and cut your own pattern into them. How do you do this and how does this affect the performance of the wheels?

How does the traction of these wheels stand up to the rubber of typical pneumatic wheels on carpet and lexan? I know they have urethane tread, but that comes in a variety of hardnesses and these seem to be on the hard, low CoF side.

I'm wondering if it's worth pursuing using these in the rear for their traction advantage in conjunction with pneumatic tires for absorbing impacts in the front. Thoughts?

[Dad1279]

Originally Posted by nuggetsyl

What do you want to know about the SkyWay wheels? We use an all gear drive for them but it could easily be done with chains.

If we press in a modified AM Hub, do you think there is enough material in the area of the screwholes to tap or drill through to bolt on the AM sprockets?

Pls excuse rough 'CAD', it was scaled off Skyway Drawing. I don't suppose anyone has a better cad file?

[jdaming]

Originally Posted by Dad1279

If we press in a modified AM Hub, do you think there is enough material in the area of the screwholes to tap or drill through to bolt on the AM sprockets?

Pls excuse rough 'CAD', it was scaled off Skyway Drawing. I don't suppose anyone has a better cad file?

This is more of the type of information I was after!

What type of their wheels do you guys use, the pneumatic I assume? The 10 and the 12 seem too big. Any experience or preference between the 8x2 Diamond vs the 8x1.25 Ribbed?

What do you think would be easiest to integrate with the AM14U3?

[Dad1279]

Originally Posted by jdaming

This is more of the type of information I was after!

What type of their wheels do you guys use, the pneumatic I assume? The 10 and the 12 seem too big. Any experience or preference between the 8x2 Diamond vs the 8x1.25 Ribbed?

What do you think would be easiest to integrate with the AM14U3?

Last time we used the skyway wheels was over 10 years ago. Keyed shafts and keyed hubs. We ordered the 9x3" with the bead-lok hub, but it isn't going to be easy to interface, and they are not pneumatic.

The 8x2 Colson is probably a better choice, with hubs from Vexpro or WCP, if non-pneumatic. If you can use 6" pneumatic, it looks like WCP has a very nice option.

[Kevin Ray]

Monochron Let's take those wheels you, DonShaw, posted as an example. Most have a 5/16" bearing in the center. The Kit chassis has a 3/8" hole for front and rear axles. Ideally the 5/16" bearing can be swapped for a 3/8" bearing, but there is no bore size listed on that site. If the bore size is 0.865" I assume the team would have a problem with fit for the bearing? Is this correct?

If the above problem is solved, now we have to mount the pulley to the wheel. It looks to me like the screws already in that wheel will interfere with the AM pulleys mounting holes. Is it worth it to go without the mounting holes that interfere? Also, drilling and accurate hole in that slope looks challenging. Can you give any recommendations for keeping your holes straight and within reasonable tolerance when drilling at such an extreme angle?


And just to make this a bit more broad, can anyone suggest methods for wheel that come without a useful bore size? Such as wheels whose bearings don't naturally fit with the KOP bolts? Re-drilling a drivetrain mount point poorly can wreak havok on a low-resource team's season. Any suggestions that make attempting it more worth it than simply waiting for backordered parts?


Okay, having been around since 2000 with the original Skyway wheelchair wheels and having the above only the mentioned tools (or lack of proper tools) we are somewhat competent at helping minimalist teams compensate for the lack of "prefabbed" drivetrains. Thankfully, we have come a long way since.

The first thing to address in adapting the pneumatic wheelchair wheels to this year's game is the bore size. We insist on 1/2 inch shafting (always captivated on both sides of the wheel) for all drive systems--especially this years game!!! If the bore is smaller than 1/2 inch you'll have to modify it; easy enough to do. First purchase 1/2 hubs (with the bore (hex, round-keyed) matching the output shaft of your drive gearbox from AndyMark or such. Second, align the hub over the wheel and insert a shaft matching the size of the wheel's bore through the hub and into the wheel. Insert a spacer around the shaft to fill the space in the hub. This ensures that the hub remains centered. Mark, drill through the hub's holes into the wheel and bolt the hub to the wheel. Now, unbolt the hub and remove the smaller bearing in the wheel and replace the hub. It is STRONGLY advised that a second similar hub be placed on the opposite side of the wheel to captivate the wheel since the shaft is now "free floating" in the bore hole created by removing the original bearings. This can all be accomplished with nothing more than a drill press and wrenches. Please note, the center of the hub (the top hat part) should be inserted into the newly created hole in the wheel's center as close to a press fit as possible.
P/M me with questions on how to easily drill out any size hole to ensure a tight fit for the hub (using only a drill press).

...hope this helps.

[Monochron]

Originally Posted by Kevin Ray

The first thing to address in adapting the pneumatic wheelchair wheels to this year's game is the bore size. We insist on 1/2 inch shafting (always captivated on both sides of the wheel) for all drive systems--especially this years game!!! If the bore is smaller than 1/2 inch you'll have to modify it; easy enough to do. First purchase 1/2 hubs (with the bore (hex, round-keyed) matching the output shaft of your drive gearbox from AndyMark or such. Second, align the hub over the wheel and insert a shaft matching the size of the wheel's bore through the hub and into the wheel. Insert a spacer around the shaft to fill the space in the hub. This ensures that the hub remains centered. Mark, drill through the hub's holes into the wheel and bolt the hub to the wheel. Now, unbolt the hub and remove the smaller bearing in the wheel and replace the hub. It is STRONGLY advised that a second similar hub be placed on the opposite side of the wheel to captivate the wheel since the shaft is now "free floating" in the bore hole created by removing the original bearings. This can all be accomplished with nothing more than a drill press and wrenches. Please note, the center of the hub (the top hat part) should be inserted into the newly created hole in the wheel's center as close to a press fit as possible.
P/M me with questions on how to easily drill out any size hole to ensure a tight fit for the hub (using only a drill press).

...hope this helps.

That is really great! When I was trying to figure out how to do this, properly centering the hub over the wheel was the real sticking point. As long as you can find a spacer to go inside the hub that would be tangent to the hex hub bore and also fit snugly on whatever shaft you inserted then I imagine you are fine. I think that's what we were missing but a quick order to McMaster should fix that.

I think this really helps to answer the OPs question as well.

[DonShaw]

There are other sources for pneumatic wheels.

for one

http://www.wheelchairparts.net/power-chairs/

Yes you may have to do some modifying but there are alternatives. Teams that have used Colson wheels in the past had to modify them.

Andymark does a great job in my opinion!

[Monochron]

Originally Posted by DonShaw

There are other sources for pneumatic wheels.

for one

http://www.wheelchairparts.net/power-chairs/

Yes you may have to do some modifying but there are alternatives. Teams that have used Colson wheels in the past had to modify them.

Andymark does a great job in my opinion!

There have been a couple "just modify some other wheels" posts in this thread and others and I would love to get a little more information about how one would go about doing that. The comments seem to be directed at all teams rather than "higher resources" teams, so we'll try to figure out what an average team that is using the KOP chassis would need to do.

Assumptions: This is an average team with tool resources such as drill presses, band saws, chop saws, cold saws, etc. No shop resources such as lathes, mills, CNC, etc. As this thread is asking about using the KOP chassis, we will need to fit these wheels to that chassis.

Let's take those wheels you, DonShaw, posted as an example. Most have a 5/16" bearing in the center. The Kit chassis has a 3/8" hole for front and rear axles. Ideally the 5/16" bearing can be swapped for a 3/8" bearing, but there is no bore size listed on that site. If the bore size is 0.865" I assume the team would have a problem with fit for the bearing? Is this correct?

If the above problem is solved, now we have to mount the pulley to the wheel. It looks to me like the screws already in that wheel will interfere with the AM pulleys mounting holes. Is it worth it to go without the mounting holes that interfere? Also, drilling and accurate hole in that slope looks challenging. Can you give any recommendations for keeping your holes straight and within reasonable tolerance when drilling at such an extreme angle?


And just to make this a bit more broad, can anyone suggest methods for wheel that come without a useful bore size? Such as wheels whose bearings don't naturally fit with the KOP bolts? Re-drilling a drivetrain mount point poorly can wreak havok on a low-resource team's season. Any suggestions that make attempting it more worth it than simply waiting for backordered parts?

[jdaming]

Monochron,

Thanks so much for your perspective in grounding the discussion. You are perfectly on track in that I am trying to have a much simpler discussion due to a lot of unfamiliarity with these changes. In our specific case we do have access to a lot of advanced tools through a relationship with a sponsor, but it order to leverage that help we have to tell them exactly what we want and figuring out what that is can be difficult at times.

[Sperkowsky]

Originally Posted by waialua359

Its really sad that their is a shortage of pneumatic wheels. No fault to the supplier. To have to go with a less than optimal alternative, if that ends up being the case with robot testing......oh boy.

The shortage is extreme too. We got the upgrade kit and I feel like we won the lotto. The only reason we got it was because our mentor ordered it an hour after it was released. By the next day we would have had to wait until week 3.

It's a crazy world out there.

[Oblarg]

Originally Posted by Sperkowsky

The shortage is extreme too. We got the upgrade kit and I feel like we won the lotto. The only reason we got it was because our mentor ordered it an hour after it was released. By the next day we would have had to wait until week 3.

It's a crazy world out there.

We see this often enough that I'm beginning to lose patience with it, to be frank. FRC suppliers have a captive market and very little competition. I'm thankful for the service they provide (no, I'm not eager to go back to the Small Parts Inc. dark ages), but I can't believe that there's no way this could be improved.