Who Likes Wheels?

[cazbar171]

Here is what we (171) have been using the last couple years. They are cheap and effective. The only downfall is they weigh quite a bit.

[ejSabathia]

Originally Posted by Rob

OK, now that it is the offseason, many of us are coming up with concepts to possible use next year. Lots of people are also going over their favorite features of other teams machines. Why don't we share some info?

Wheels are fundamental to the operation of a FIRST robot. What types of wheels does your team prefer, and why?

If you buy your wheels, please list (and say why):

Source
Material
Size
Durometer rating (if applicable)

If you make custom wheels, Please list (and why):

What materials you use
How they are designes/assembled
What the wheels use as tread material and how it is fastened to the wheel

Don't feel left out if you like tracks! Tell us about them as well!

Hopefully everyone can get share some good info that we can all benefit from.
Thanks!

Rob

for the past...3 years we've (254) gone with custom wheels. before then we used the 6" skyway wheels from the kit. by going with custom milled aluminium wheels we were able to make a lighter/stronger wheel. the last plus is that we can put any kinda tred we want on them. here isa picture of what they evolved to in 04....

just to xplain what u r seeing the wheel is three pieces...

-the center red hub
-the blue webbing (the reason we made the hub and the webbing separate is so that when we need to change a wheel is doesn't mess with the chain tention or anything else, they just pop on n off)
-the silver ring (used to pinch the tred into the groove)

http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/pi...&quiet=Verbose

http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/pi...&quiet=Verbose

[team222badbrad]

Here are the wheels Henry222 is telling you about.

We have been using wheels since day one and that was 8 years ago. For 6 of those years we used those 8'' Skyway wheels. In 2003 we used the wheels shown in the picture with a caster conversion system for 2W/4W drive. In 2004 we used the 12.5'' Pneumatic wheels from Skyway with a ball caster system for 2W/4W drive.

[Barry Bonzack]

whats the reason for more teams not using the wheelchair wheels that comes in the kit? That is all our budget really allowed for, so we used them.

[MrToast]

Originally Posted by Bonzack1390

whats the reason for more teams not using the wheelchair wheels that comes in the kit? That is all our budget really allowed for, so we used them.

The problem we had with the wheelchair wheels happened at on of our regionals:

The center hub got ripped completely out. Just snapped clean off. It's like we had the wheelchair wheel, but with no center part. As part of the pit crew, I must say that it was quite impressive

Hey JoeM, do you have any pics of that?

[Ryan F.]

Originally Posted by Bonzack1390

whats the reason for more teams not using the wheelchair wheels that comes in the kit? That is all our budget really allowed for, so we used them.

The problems we had with those was turning. At the beginning of the year....we tested out some simular wheels, and we could barely turn on carpet w/out burning our battery out in half a minute, and turning didn't really happen...it was more of a skip/jump thing.

[cazbar171]

Notice the tracks on the one on the right (our 2002 bot). They cost about $80 each and weigh 15 pounds each.

[Avarik]

We have access to a CNC mill, and we order some aluminum and cut it up there to make our rims. We then go through and cut up inclined conveyor belt which we order (I believe from McMaster.) We also anodize our rims. We then rivet on the conveyor belt, and create 6 wheels with this design. We end up placing these on our robot, and lowering the 2 middle wheels 1/4 in to allow for much better turning. We can turn on a dime with that set up, while we still have the advantages of 6 wheel drive, and we get very good traction this way.

We do this because it is light, effective, doesn't take too long to do, and it looks really nice. In testing, none of the team members could push our robot (we also had 4 motor drive) and we weren't pushed around in competition - save the one time our battery died.