pic: Team 1538's Machined Parts (C)

[Joel J]

hrm.. there's a "west coat community" and a "midwest community," but the east is fairly divided. Yep.

[DarkFlame145]

Originally Posted by raf4far

Some teams do not have facilities to machine their parts and they either have sponsers to machine it for them or pay for them to be machined.

Ah, that makes mroe sense, I guess since the area i live in (red neck USA) Im not use to people not having access to a shop

Originally Posted by jjack

As for DarkFlame145's comment. These parts we made by students at two different shops.

Them wheels where great lath work, excuse me from my last comment.

[Jon Jack]

Originally Posted by DarkFlame145

Them wheels where great lath work, excuse me from my last comment.

I believe there were somewhere around 10 lathe operations and 1 CNC operation on a Fadal. Roughly 1.5-2 hours per wheel. Of the 10 lathe operations, 6 were to create the recesses on each side (3 per side), 2 were to true up up both sides (1 per side), 1 to take the diameter down to size and the last was to create the groove where the tread goes. The Fadal operation was used to break some of the edges and then cut out the pattern in the middle.

[Rafi Ahmed]

Originally Posted by Travis Covington

To me, the "west coast drive" has more to do with slotted wheel mounts/tensioners, cantilevered wheels and chassis mounted gearboxes than wheel size. The chosen wheel size will always depend on the game, while the rest of the drivetrain remains the same. As a west coaster and 10 year veteran, I always give the most credit to Glenn of team 60 as being the 'father' to a lot of the concepts. While many changes have been made in recent history by various teams, he deserves a whole ton of credit for what many teams use today.

He does deserve most of the credit of the West Coast Drive System. Thank You Glenn!!

[Guy Chriqui]

Originally Posted by jjack

I believe there were somewhere around 10 lathe operations and 1 CNC operation on a Fadal. Roughly 1.5-2 hours per wheel. Of the 10 lathe operations, 6 were to create the recesses on each side (3 per side), 2 were to true up up both sides (1 per side), 1 to take the diameter down to size and the last was to create the groove where the tread goes. The Fadal operation was used to break some of the edges and then cut out the pattern in the middle.

Seems a little excessive? I know we make our wheels in 2 ops. First we do all the pattern work and bolt circles (20 min per wheel) and then its a 5 minute CNC lathe op to hog out the back sides. Just reworked it to be under 20 minutes I hope (finding out tomorrow when i load up the new code) but otherwise I have to say that 10 lathe ops is a ton. Our big thing this year is making manufacturing processes more efficient and it has been a huge help since our time in the shop has been cut extensively. I am willing to bet that you could cut that 2 hours per wheel in half at least.
-Guy