Pre-season purchases

[ebarker]

Originally Posted by sanddrag

#25 chain is a pretty safe bet. I wouldn't get much of anything else pre-season unless it was tools.

Why is #25 safe ? Not very many people use it. The KOP is #35. So far we have never bought that in 8 years. Then again we have never had a winning robot either !

[BrendanB]

I've heard mixed on 25 vs 35. Pros to 35 is that it very standard on high torque applications such as arms and drivebases and since it is larger, it is easier to work on which comes in handy if you blow a chain the finals. 25 is smaller and lighter but it is a pain to work with in a timely manner with how small the master links are. Great for small applications such as rollers, set and forget.

I have heard of a few teams using a combo in their drivebases to save weight. Use 35 chain to drive the the middle set of wheels in a 6wd and have 25 spanning to the front and back. So even if you blow a 25 chain you can still drive your main dropped center wheel. To save such a small amount of weight I'd rather just drill a few holes but if your aim is to use as little weight as possible from the start of the design it isn't a bad idea.

For me, 35 as much as possible. Less spare parts to plan ahead for and I know when properly tensioned it will be consistent and an easy fix if something goes south.

Pre-season purchase? Kinects!

[Al Skierkiewicz]

"I can't be bought but I can be rented..."
Quote from my Physics 101 instructor. ca.1970

[apalrd]

The great 35 vs 25 debate.

We have used only 25 in the drivetrain for many years now. Last year we lacked 35 completely, and the year before we only had 35 on the lift arm (an extremely high load application).

We also don't use master links where we can avoid it. We use the Dark Soul chain tool to create seamless drive chains.

That said, we use only 35 for OCCRA (as required by the rules - no 25 allowed in OCCRA). This is mostly a precision issue. If the robot can be built to reasonable tolerances, then 25 is acceptable. With the quality of craftsmanship in OCCRA, 35 is a stretch for most teams for most things.

If you can build things precisely, 25 will work fine for almost every FRC application including drivetrains. If you can't, then 35 will let you be much more sloppy.

[Chris is me]

Originally Posted by ebarker

Why is #25 safe ? Not very many people use it. The KOP is #35. So far we have never bought that in 8 years. Then again we have never had a winning robot either !

I think he meant "your team's preferred method of power transfer".