New Track Option

[MikLast]

Do you ship to international teams? It may not apply to me personally but there are more than a few teams that are not in the intercontinental US.

[TankChain]

Originally Posted by Jon Stratis

The other option is to provide it like chain is provided - you give us certain fixed-length segments, and have a way built in to use a chain breaker to shorten them. Then rely on a single master link to join it together into a closed loop.

I agree with the concept. It is a little more complicated because the tread piece in the middle. We replace the pins in the roller chain with much longer ones that travel through the whole tread. We will add a press fit version to our R&D work.

Originally Posted by Jon Stratis

My bigger concern would be how it turns on normal FRC carpet (for this year, Shaw Floors, Philadelphia Commercial, Neyland II 20, 30352, “Scotch Pine”). I'd love to see a "typical" robot (30"x30" square, weighted to a total of 150 lbs) setup with this for its drive train, and driven around on FRC carpet. I've seen plenty of robots with tank treads have trouble turning during competition before!

We do have one FIRST team who already has the tracks on their robot. I will contact them and see if they are willing to post some picture / videos of their robot. I know they were still working on their robot, but they were really happy with the product. I will actually be visiting them Feb 5th, to spend the day with the school giving a presentation.

We are open to all comments and look at this as a way to improve our design.

Josh

[TankChain]

Originally Posted by MikLast

Do you ship to international teams? It may not apply to me personally but there are more than a few teams that are not in the intercontinental US.

We will ship to anyone that wants it. Shipping charges would apply.

Also, we are happy to use expedited shipping for anyone that wants it.

Josh

[IndySam]

Originally Posted by TankChain

We manufacture the track in house and have inventory to make quite a few more tracks. Typical orders ship within 2 weeks or the order, but we shoot for having them in the mail in a 1 week turn around. We will do everything we can to ship orders ASAP because we understand that teams are working with a limited amount of time.

We are a growing company, and have plans for scaling up production. But there are obviously some limitations. We have some options to increase our in house production capabilities in the short term. But ideally we would like to get enough orders where we could get a run injection molded at our partner company. This would be approximately 25 orders. The lead time on that is 15 business days, but we might be able to expedite that because we have a good working relationship with this company and the ground work for this order has already been laid.

All I can say is we will do everything in our power to get track to anyone that wants it. And we will do everything we can to ship part out as quickly as possible.

Josh

What color gets the best turnaround time?

[TankChain]

Originally Posted by IndySam

What color gets the best turnaround time?

None of the standard color change the turn around time. However, if someone wanted periwinkle blue or another specific color it might be a little longer. haha

Black is the most popular color for industrial applications. But I get the feeling that colored options would be more popular in FIRST robotics. We can also offer an educational discount on the colored tracks.

Josh

[JesseK]

Hmm, my hobby ears are burning...

Thanks for the durometer specs! Those help a lot. I'll make sure my team gets a look at these. They will utterly love the purple...

It's tough to tell the scale of the pictures, but is it #35 or #25 chain (found the answer). How wide are the tracks?

[TankChain]

Originally Posted by JesseK

Hmm, my hobby ears are burning...

Thanks for the durometer specs! Those help a lot. I'll make sure my team gets a look at these. They will utterly love the purple...

It's tough to tell the scale of the pictures, but is it #35 or #25 chain? How wide are the tracks?

I actually love the purple too. I graduated from Kansas State University and our colors are Purple and White.

If you look at the photos in the shop, there is a print with dimensions. The tracks are 3" wide and use #35 chain.

We are working on a 1.5" track using #35 track and a smaller version using #25 chain. The 1.5" track should be ready to go on sale within two weeks. But the #25 chain will be a while because we just started designing it.

Josh

[KohKohPuffs]

How was the tread manufactured? From images of the tank chain, I see layers, indicating the use of a 3D printer, or was there a different approach to this?

Also, what material is used for the treads?

[arc25565]

Do you have any videos of these treads in action? I would really like to see how they perform.

[TankChain]

Originally Posted by KohKohPuffs

How was the tread manufactured? From images of the tank chain, I see layers, indicating the use of a 3D printer, or was there a different approach to this?

Also, what material is used for the treads?

The layers are actually tool marks on the mold from the machining process. The parts are molded using a Shore A Urethane rubber similar to the rubber on car tires.

Our very first mold was as polished and under the correct light you can see the tool marks from the mold. Our newer molds are more polished and you can't see any tool marks. We are always trying to improve our process.

Josh

[TankChain]

Originally Posted by arc25565

Do you have any videos of these treads in action? I would really like to see how they perform.

We are working on getting videos on our website. We are a new company and have several customers, but don't have videos we can publish yet.

Josh

[mrnoble]

Let's say my team purchases two robots worth of tread tomorrow, as a precaution (tread is a possibility but is running in second place right now).

1. what would be the turnaround time for delivery? And,
2. what would be the restocking fee, if we decide that we go with (redacted) instead of tank tread?

Thanks again for all the responses!

[TankChain]

Originally Posted by mrnoble

Let's say my team purchases two robots worth of tread tomorrow, as a precaution (tread is a possibility but is running in second place right now).

1. what would be the turnaround time for delivery? And,
2. what would be the restocking fee, if we decide that we go with (redacted) instead of tank tread?

Thanks again for all the responses!

Are typical turn around time is 2 weeks, but we shoot for shipping as close to 1 week as we can.

If you order black track, and let us know you would like to cancel your order before we ship no restocking fee would apply. If we already shipped it, you would have to pay for the shipping.

Josh

[arc25565]

This track looks very interesting, the only concern I have is the turning speed of the robot. One other question, how much force can the tread withstand before it breaks.

[Tom Line]

Originally Posted by arc25565

This track looks very interesting, the only concern I have is the turning speed of the robot. One other question, how much force can the tread withstand before it breaks.

If you have the entire tread in contact with the carpet at once..... you probably aren't turning very well. That's a drivetrain design problem, not a tread one. I'd expect you want a drop center on this the same as a 6 wheel drivetrain - if not potentially more.