In Need of Banebot Wheels

[mlantry]

Originally Posted by bigbeezy

Collector:
Attachment 19232

Wheel w/ Tread:
Attachment 19233

Wheel w/o Tread:
Attachment 19234

Vex Versa Wheel w/ tread. This was used on our practice bot since February. Never been changed. The notch at the bottom of the tread is from it rubbing against a bolt before we noticed. We went with 3D printed wheels for weight.
Attachment 19235

So did you make a tire essentially with the none adhesive belt. Did you melt the belt together?

[R.C.]

Originally Posted by mlantry

So did you make a tire essentially with the none adhesive belt. Did you melt the belt together?

The tire seems to be tube and not a strip. Same polyurethane tube a handful of teams used this year.

[bigbeezy]

Originally Posted by mlantry

So did you make a tire essentially with the none adhesive belt. Did you melt the belt together?

Originally Posted by R.C.

The tire seems to be tube and not a strip. Same polyurethane tube a handful of teams used this year.

It is a rubber tube. Comes 4" OD x 3" ID (McMaster has numerous sizes and lengths). We cut 1" sections from the 6" long tube and stretched it onto the wheel. No adhesive, screws, rivets, etc. needed.

[Travis Hoffman]

Originally Posted by bigbeezy

Because Banebots was out of stock we went a different route this year. We 3D printed wheels (~4" OD out of PLA @ 60% infill) and used Polyurethane Rubber Tube as the tread (McMaster 87235K79). Just cut to width and stretch over the wheel. We had lips on either side to retain the tread. These worked fantastic and the wear was nothing compared to Green Banebot wheels (we didn't have Orange to try). Just be sure to clean them in between matches. These collector wheels went through 2 regionals, champs, IRI, R2OC and are perfectly fine. We did replace the tread for IRI but we didn't need to.

We used the same polyurethane material, but for hubs, we lathed the tread off of old Banebots 3-7/8" wheels and attached with adhesive and screws. We'd do this again, in a pinch. We recycled, in a rush.

[sportzkrazzy]

The polyurethane material is definitely the way to go. We tested pretty much everything out there and that was the most durable, highest traction materiel we could find for manipulating both totes and rcs. The trick is keeping them clean. Wiping them down in between in match does the trick. The best thing about it is that you can get for any much any size intake roller you need maxing out at 4 inches. We just stretched it over a 4 inch andymark performance wheel because that's what we had laying around at the shop. It required no adhesives just relied on the friction between the materiel and the hub to hold it and it worked great. The only thing we did was machine it down drastically to save weight. 179 Used them as well at IRI and they 3d printed plastic hubs for them. Originally they tried to make them out of abs but the hubs where not holding up do to the loads and impacts however after they switched to pla they held up great. Maybe someone from 179 can provide a little more incite on printing methods ie infill, wall thickness,and print direction.

[topgun]

The ingenuity and different thinking shown in this thread is inspiring, and will make my life easier during build season.

I always find these kind of threads extremely useful! Keep the ideas rolling.

[BumblingBuilder]

Originally Posted by bigbeezy

Because Banebots was out of stock we went a different route this year. We 3D printed wheels (~4" OD out of PLA @ 60% infill) and used Polyurethane Rubber Tube as the tread (McMaster 87235K79). Just cut to width and stretch over the wheel. We had lips on either side to retain the tread. These worked fantastic and the wear was nothing compared to Green Banebot wheels (we didn't have Orange to try). Just be sure to clean them in between matches. These collector wheels went through 2 regionals, champs, IRI, R2OC and are perfectly fine. We did replace the tread for IRI but we didn't need to.

Yeah we are thinking about doing this if other options are unavailable. Thanks for the info!

[BumblingBuilder]

Yeah, our intakes were the weakest part of our robot during the season so they really need a redesign. Thanks for all the ideas you all proposed! I have no one from my team to consult right now, but I feel convinced about the polyurethane method.

[Qbot2640]

Just throwing this question out there - since I have no experience with these at all...but how would Colson wheels compare? It seems a much more affordable option than the expensive polyurethane material from McM.

[Knufire]

Originally Posted by Qbot2640

Just throwing this question out there - since I have no experience with these at all...but how would Colson wheels compare? It seems a much more affordable option than the expensive polyurethane material from McM.

I would imagine Colson wheels have a significantly lower CoF on a tote or can than a softer polyurethane compound.

[AdamHeard]

Originally Posted by Knufire

I would imagine Colson wheels have a significantly lower CoF on a tote or can than a softer polyurethane compound.

Agreed. The polyurethane has a non-sticky tackiness that grips things very well which other treads don't seem to. The 2010 balls, 2013 disks, 2015 bins, etc...

All said and done a mcmaster based polyurethane custom wheel is about 2-3 times the cots of a banebots wheel, but will last far far longer and performs great deal better. The relatively thick tread has some give/compression which helps as well.

Colsons are slightly cheaper, would last presumably as long, but not perform nearly as well (they're really a different kind of tread with different design constraints).

[Karthik]

Originally Posted by sportzkrazzy

The polyurethane material is definitely the way to go. We tested pretty much everything out there and that was the most durable, highest traction materiel we could find for manipulating both totes and rcs. The trick is keeping them clean. Wiping them down in between in match does the trick. The best thing about it is that you can get for any much any size intake roller you need maxing out at 4 inches. We just stretched it over a 4 inch andymark performance wheel because that's what we had laying around at the shop. It required no adhesives just relied on the friction between the materiel and the hub to hold it and it worked great. The only thing we did was machine it down drastically to save weight. 179 Used them as well at IRI and they 3d printed plastic hubs for them. Originally they tried to make them out of abs but the hubs where not holding up do to the loads and impacts however after they switched to pla they held up great. Maybe someone from 179 can provide a little more incite on printing methods ie infill, wall thickness,and print direction.

We used similar material on our shooter wheels in 2014. However we used strips instead of the tube. For hubs, we just used standard VEXpro 4" traction wheels, that way we could easily integrate them into our robot using the Versa hubs and hex shaft, without having to make any custom parts.

[llamadon]

Originally Posted by Karthik

We used similar material on our shooter wheels in 2014. However we used strips instead of the tube. For hubs, we just used standard VEXpro 4" traction wheels, that way we could easily integrate them into our robot using the Versa hubs and hex shaft, without having to make any custom parts.

We had thought about using the adhesive backed strips of the poly-urethane from McMaster that has been mentioned in this thread. Is this what 1114 used on their shooter wheels? Or were the strips attached by other methods? Such as rivets or bolts?

[thatprogrammer]

Would anyone happen to know how much larger/smaller you want the tubing to be compared to whatever you slide them onto? From what I've heard, you want something slightly smaller than the diameter of what you're going to slide onto, and you need to inflate it slightly so it slides onto it.

[Karthik]

Originally Posted by llamadon

We had thought about using the adhesive backed strips of the poly-urethane from McMaster that has been mentioned in this thread. Is this what 1114 used on their shooter wheels? Or were the strips attached by other methods? Such as rivets or bolts?

We did not use the adhesive backed versions; we riveted the material on instead.