Who makes their own wheels?

[ASD20]

Originally Posted by Fusion_Clint

Chris, I was asking clarifying questions to the troll post

How is that a troll post? The poster is simply referencing another thread on pretty much the exact same topic.

[Fusion_Clint]

Originally Posted by ASD20

How is that a troll post? The poster is simply referencing another thread on pretty much the exact same topic.

A link to a post with a link to a stupid video is a troll post.

[Michael Corsetto]

Originally Posted by bkahl

There is a reason Mike Corsetto says "Steal from the best, invent the rest" in every post asking why 1678 is so good.

Originally Posted by Fusion_Clint

I know that 2056 and all of the top teams teach their students the how and why, they have too. You can't pick the right COTS part without understanding how it works.

The implication I took from the troll post was "don't worry about design and copy what 2056 does."

Since I got quoted on here, figured it would be about time to chime in

Devin stated a lot of our teams development over the past 4 years. Just as a heads up, the kids are designing a pneumatic catapult on a turret this off-season, pretty much just because we've never done one before. We'll train new kids and add two more mechanisms to our team knowledge base. Its a valuable process that I encourage other teams to try out (we stole the idea from 971 and 973)

"Steal from the best, invent the rest" is something I've been saying for a long time. I probably stole the quote from someone/somewhere, but its been so long I can't remember

Would it irk people in this thread to know I will sometimes encourage our students to copy designs even if they don't understand everything about the design they mimic?

Our students are some of the brightest kids I've met. I can say with 100% confidence they are 10x the engineer I was when I was a student in FRC. Their communication and technical skills amaze me every year.

If my students don't understand a few things, I won't lose sleep over it. Inspiration is why I'm here.

Regardless, good on you Clint, please share your results! We have some wheel CAD from 2014 on our site (I think!) if you're interested.

-Mike

BTW, funny story. We tried 3D printing some 4" wheels on our makerbot during the first week of build season 2014. Never again! We had Aluminum custom wheels back from our machine shop sponsor by week 3 that year... Live and learn!

[Landonh12]

I'm going to chime in here because I've watched this blow up without any explanation on why we are building wheels other than the intent to teach students the process of manufacturing.

This year we bought some wheels. (I won't say what wheels, they were plastic.) We used them during build season and they failed.

We are building our first WCD this offseason and are trying to keep it as cheap as possible. We found that aluminum wheels are very expensive, so we found that it would be cheaper to just buy aluminum blocks and make them ourselves (about a 50% savings).

Thank you to everyone who gave advice about making wheels. After a very successful year we are trying to venture out and try some new things. We've made the same drivetrain for over 10 years. It has worked well for us, but we see the advantages of WCD. Expect to see more posts from Clint asking questions about certain things, we need the help.

P.S. Part of our inspiration for doing this project was the released materials this offseason. We specifically looked at the CAD of 254 and 1678 on how to make a WCD.

[bkahl]

Originally Posted by Fusion_Clint

Chris, I was asking clarifying questions to the troll post of

How is a post a troll post if it links to a discussion on the same topic, including testimonies from Adam and Tyler, who not only are some of the most Respected mentors I know, but also some of the smartest.

If ANYTHING, it adds to the discussion by bringing relevant info from another thread.

And to be really honest, he linked you to a thread that you COULD have found if you searched.

The implication I took from the troll post was "don't worry about design and copy what 2056 does."

Seriously?

There is a reason Mike Corsetto says "Steal from the best, invent the rest" in every post asking why 1678 is so good.

No one is trying to tell you to copy 2056. But, from experience and the obvious testimony in this thread, designing a custom wheel IS NOT the best use of time, resources, or knowledge. You'll find much better use of time and I think students would find a better experience designing a different custom mechanism, like maybe an elevator, a more complicated drive train(that uses COTS, most drives SHOULD), or something that is a bit more complicated than something I can make in about 3 clicks in CAD.

[Andrew Schreiber]

Originally Posted by bkahl

How is a post a troll post if it links to a discussion on the same topic, including testimonies from Adam and Tyler, who not only are some of the most Respected mentors I know, but also some of the smartest.

If ANYTHING, it adds to the discussion by bringing relevant info from another thread.

Because it doesn't agree with his point.

[RoboChair]

Originally Posted by bkahl

Seriously?

There is a reason Mike Corsetto says "Steal from the best, invent the rest" in every post asking why 1678 is so good.

Exactly, we do just that by copying designs other teams have used for custom wheels modifying as needed and making them for our robots. We also have an internal saying that we should only "build what we know" where we only build stuff we have built before and know the fine details of or are sufficiently confident we can pull off. We make that list longer in the off season by doing projects EXACTLY like this. We would have had pretty crappy bots if we hadn't first learned ourselves how to build an elevator off season 2014 and an articulated arm in off season 2015. A drivetrain is the SOUL of your robot, and a badly implemented drivetrain is the single quickest way to to have a shorter competition season.

"I have never built a WCD before and don't feel comfortable switching to this different type of design, so we are building one this off season so we don't make stupid mistakes this coming build season."

We used custom traction wheels in 2013 and 2014 because it mattered. In 2015 there was near zero reason for that level of traction so we ran colson. In 2016 we ran pneumatic and colson because we knew that the custom wheels would not provide the durability needed to survive the game. All those decisions were based off of prior experience, personal or leveraged from the community.

[Dave McLaughlin]

Originally Posted by Fusion_Clint

So 2056 doesn't teach students or collaborate with other teachers in the offseason? I agree that making custom wheels during the build season is not an ideal expenditure of time.

However, I thought my job was to educate students. Which I do year round. If my students know how to design and make a wheel, they will understand how to select the best wheel for our application.

I guess we could go the route of copying what the best teams do, but I prefer my students to understand why we do things.

[pwnageNick]

In 2013 we ran an 8WD with custom aluminum wheels with blue nitrile wrapped around. The wheels were also hubless and had a tube shaft as part of the wheel. This allowed larger bearings to be run directly on the wheel.

Here's a link to an album with some pictures from it.

Imgur Album

[R.C.]

Originally Posted by pwnageNick

In 2013 we ran an 8WD with custom aluminum wheels with blue nitrile wrapped around. The wheels were also hubless and had a tube shaft as part of the wheel. This allowed larger bearings to be run directly on the wheel.

Here's a link to an album with some pictures from it.

Imgur Album

Those are some baller wheels. What was the run time on those and what machine did you guys use?

[pwnageNick]

Originally Posted by R.C.

Those are some baller wheels. What was the run time on those and what machine did you guys use?

The answer to "what was the run time" was too much. They definitely took some time. Sorry I don't have an exact answer, I want to say we got them week 3 but I'm just about guessing it was so long ago.

We actually outsourced the wheels; with all the other parts we had to machine in house we made the decision to ask a sponsor to help out with getting them made. From what I remember they were made with a CNC, not sure how many axis. Kevin might be able to answer that better here.

[Fusion_Clint]

What is this device called, We need one.

http://imgur.com/a/trWYm

[Forhire]

Originally Posted by Fusion_Clint

What is this device called, We need one.

http://imgur.com/a/trWYm

It looks like a Harig Uni-Dex. http://www.harigmfg.com/unidex.html

Or a Harig GRIND-ALL No. 1. http://www.harigmfg.com/grindall1g.html

In grinding these are commonly called whirligigs. Unless your grinding I doubt you can justify the cost of a Harig... even used.

You might try a less expensive spin indexer that can be had for ~$50 bucks.
http://www.grizzly.com/products/5-C-...campaign=zPage

[Thayer McCollum]

We made wheels during the 2016 season for our shooter. We needed flywheels and we found some in our many years worth of old stuff and were going to use them but realized that a) the shaft hole and the outside of the wheel weren't concentric (Enough that you could clearly tell when they were spinning in a lathe) and b) that they were custom wheels from an old season (2007... I think...) and so were unusable because of the rule about non-COTS parts manufactured outside the season. So we designed our flywheels and machined them ourselves. That was a sight to see! These were 4" OD wheels with material cut out to the 3/4" (I think...) support for the shaft and into the wheel roughly 1" to the center. The best part... THEY WERE MADE OF STEEL! I need to find a picture of them because the are the greatest thing I have seen come out of our shop without the help of a CNC machine.

[Mitchell1714]

Originally Posted by pwnageNick

In 2013 we ran an 8WD with custom aluminum wheels with blue nitrile wrapped around. The wheels were also hubless and had a tube shaft as part of the wheel. This allowed larger bearings to be run directly on the wheel.

Here's a link to an album with some pictures from it.

Imgur Album

Those are some absolutely beautiful wheels. How did you attach the sprockets to the wheel "shafts"? I'm assuming the two little holes at the end of the wheel "shaft" had something to do with it. Also, why were some of the sprockets hex shaft fit and some round(in pic #2)?