Drive System treds/tracks

[Andy Baker]

Originally Posted by Stephen Kowski

you can also order all the same items from http://www.fnsheppard.com they are more expensive, but lead times are shorter. I also recommend if you are planning on ordering these belts for this season you do it NOW because the lead times on pulleys are about 5-6 weeks. If you are only ordering belts the lead times are normally 2-3 weeks....

good luck

These are the brand of belts we used on team 45 in 2003. They worked well, but yes they were expensive. Steve Butler (Delphi engineer on team 45) found them and had regular contact with the company. We bought delrin pulley stock from the same company. Austin Butler (Steve's son, one of our team leaders this year) spent about a week making fancy white delrin chips when he lightened them up and put the v-groove in the pulley. These delrin pulleys are much lighter than the purchased aluminum ones, and they are relatively cheap if you buy the stock and whittle on them yourself.

Making a treaded robot is not trivial. We did it in '99, '01, '02, '03. Many other teams have used them for repeated years. There are some advantages but there are as many headaches too. Countless threads on this site have been devoted to tread design.

To sum up advice on treads, 3 things are important:
1. wheel/pulley alignment must be precise
2. treads must stay very tight (this, btw, leads to much inefficiency)
3. you will want to design in a convex "bow" on the bottom of your tread.

Good luck,
Andy B.