At the Glacier peak event this weekend, team 8248 ChainLynx had issues wearing out the molded plastic wheels on their Rev swerve modules. At the end of Saturday they desperately needed new wheels and were having to resort to replacing the delaminated rubber with several layers of tape.
I went home on Saturday and immediately started designing a 3d print optimized wheel for them.
I essentially started with the model from The Thrifty Bot and then just deleted most of it and started over.
I was able to start printing them remotely on another mentors Bambu Labs Carbon X1. Since the printer was only loaded with PETG at the time, I cut the wheels in half so they would print without support and provide extra stiffness in the center of the tread. I cranked up the thickness and infill setting to maximize strength and take up the full 8 hours available overnight.
Unfortunately the build plate on the printer shifted slightly sometime in the morning and the wheels weren’t quite perfect, but they were still usable.
Time-lapse of the overnight print
I picked up the printer in the morning and took it to the event where we loaded some stronger Carbon Fiber PA filament and were able to crank out one piece wheels at a rate of about 1 every hour and 15 minutes, delivering another full set by the middle of playoffs.
Time-lapse of a print from the event
Unfortunately they weren’t needed as even though ChainLynx won their replay match while down a robot they didn’t end up getting picked.
I highly recommend teams with MAXSwerve look at upgrading to treaded wheels from either Rev or The Thrifty Bot.
If anyone else need some 3D printed wheels to keep their modules going in the meantime I have uploaded the models HERE.