pic: 4 Inch Wheel Design

[Akash Rastogi]

Psh, 604 needs to bring these babies back.

[Cory]

Originally Posted by MWB

Well i was thinking of broaching it while it was assembled or just simply keying it. The two halves is so that you can clamp the tread along with rivits for a better grip.

There's really no point to making a two piece wheel without having the undercut groove to capture the tread. It won't be any different than a one piece wheel without it.

[MWB]

Originally Posted by Cory

There's really no point to making a two piece wheel without having the undercut groove to capture the tread. It won't be any different than a one piece wheel without it.

Yeah i know ive added it since i just forgot to do it when i took that picture. Thanks Cory

[=Martin=Taylor=]

Someone explain to me why, in this day and age, anyone would bother making custom wheels.

[Eugene Fang]

Originally Posted by =Martin=Taylor=

Someone explain to me why, in this day and age, anyone would bother making custom wheels.

Because they're cool! Although I have to say AM Performance wheels are really good, especially their price. You could get custom wheels about 40% lighter though. If that matters.

http://www.andymark.biz/am-0393.html

[RMS11]

Ya, we made them this year for weight reasons. Also, Andy Mark 4" performance wheels do not come with the bolt pattern, making direct drive wheels much harder to set up.

[Cory]

Originally Posted by =Martin=Taylor=

Someone explain to me why, in this day and age, anyone would bother making custom wheels.

Because we would have spent $1800+shipping to buy AndyMark Performance Wheels this year...and once we got them we would have had to do secondary machining on them anyways.

Instead we made our own for $300 plus ~20 hours of my time.

[MWB]

Originally Posted by Cory

Because we would have spent $1800+shipping to buy AndyMark Performance Wheels this year...and once we got them we would have had to do secondary machining on them anyways.

Instead we made our own for $300 plus ~20 hours of my time.

How many wheels did you make for yourselves and other teams? Im just curious.

[R.C.]

Originally Posted by =Martin=Taylor=

Someone explain to me why, in this day and age, anyone would bother making custom wheels.

Originally Posted by Cory

Because we would have spent $1800+shipping to buy AndyMark Performance Wheels this year...and once we got them we would have had to do secondary machining on them anyways.

Instead we made our own for $300 plus ~20 hours of my time.

Martin,

Cory is definitely right, we spent about $1500 plus shipping for a set of wheels for our bot, practice and rookie team.

They also weighed in at 1lb per wheel for a 6 inch wheel. Even with modd'd IFI wheels they were way tooo heavy.

For next season we will be making custom wheels unless "standard" wheels (2009) make a return.

-RC

[Cory]

Originally Posted by MWB

How many wheels did you make for yourselves and other teams? Im just curious.

We made a total of 72 wheels.

[Jamie Kalb]

Originally Posted by Cory

Because we would have spent $1800+shipping to buy AndyMark Performance Wheels this year...and once we got them we would have had to do secondary machining on them anyways.

Instead we made our own for $300 plus ~20 hours of my time.

Hey Cory,

I totally understand and agree with what you're saying, but I'm curious as to how much design time the wheels took. Is that included in that 20 hours? Design time was a huge limiting factor for my team this year, and it was probably the number one reason we used off-the-shelf wheels.

[Brandon Holley]

Originally Posted by Jamie Kalb

Hey Cory,

I totally understand and agree with what you're saying, but I'm curious as to how much design time the wheels took. Is that included in that 20 hours? Design time was a huge limiting factor for my team this year, and it was probably the number one reason we used off-the-shelf wheels.

Wheels are really not that demanding in terms of "design time". A good wheel can be pumped through CAD, verified with FEA, re-CAD-ed and ready for manufacturing in a couple hours.

-Brando

P.S.- Obviously this could vary depending on the wheels you actually design. I'm just speaking from experience in terms of the wheels I've designed in the past.

[NickE]

Originally Posted by Jamie Kalb

I totally understand and agree with what you're saying, but I'm curious as to how much design time the wheels took. Is that included in that 20 hours? Design time was a huge limiting factor for my team this year, and it was probably the number one reason we used off-the-shelf wheels.

The design of our wheels was based off of previous wheels we have made, although it is the first one-piece 4" wheel. It probably took 20-30 minutes to design the wheel.

[Akash Rastogi]

Originally Posted by Brandon Holley

Wheels are really not that demanding in terms of "design time". A good wheel can be pumped through CAD, verified with FEA, re-CAD-ed and ready for manufacturing in a couple hours.

-Brando

P.S.- Obviously this could vary depending on the wheels you actually design. I'm just speaking from experience in terms of the wheels I've designed in the past.

Jamie,

The Poofs/RAWC also have years of experience perfecting and optimizing their wheel designs year after year. Their standardized drivetrain which is then adapted to the game on a yearly basis is something that always gives them an edge in both manufacturing time and during the robot design process (much the same as Team 25). If you check out their older wheels you can see a pretty cool "evolution in design" process.

.

[=Martin=Taylor=]

Originally Posted by Cory

Because we would have spent $1800+shipping to buy AndyMark Performance Wheels this year...and once we got them we would have had to do secondary machining on them anyways.

Instead we made our own for $300 plus ~20 hours of my time.

Our traction wheels came in the 2008 kit. So we didn't spend any money on them (besides registration), and they took 0 hours to make.

The kit wheels are highly under-rated.

I see custom wheels as more of a fashion statement then a practicality. They certainly are impressive and cool Props for making awesome things.