Where can we find good pneumatic wheels?

[Ian Curtis]

Originally Posted by EricH

The McMaster ones are high-traction. Give us 2 of those as our center wheels, and we'll able to hold our own in a pushing match if needed. 4, and we'rr a bit better. They wear well, too; when you see the red, pull out the spares, but you've got a few more matches. One set could last an entire event, eliminations included, and be usable in practice later. The cost is about the same, $20 US/wheel, but McMaster is known for fast shipping if they're near your area (and willing to deal with you).

I don't know about the MBS wheels in terms of traction and wear; mountainboards aren't exactly designed for light use, though. (And they're not designed to be self-powered...)

1276 used pneumatic wheels and hubs intended for mountainboards in 2005 for our two powered rear wheels. The front two were omniwheel casters. We played in the vicinity of 10 matches (qualifying plus 3 elimination rounds), had a week of driver practice and two more years of abuse driving it on just about everything as a defender for driver practice and demo bot. They stood up just fine. I don't remember the vendor, it was just some mountainboard shop we found online.

You can barely see the top of one in the lower right.

One of the reasons we gave up on pneumatic wheels was they make driving straight (especially in autonomous) a really big pain in the butt. We found how straight we drove could be impacted hugely by a relatively small difference in tire pressure. We found it much simpler to drive in a relatively straight line once we made the switch to solid wheels. YMMV, or you might actually finish on time so you have time to test better code!