I have a question that I’d like to take some time to get answered as my team is now gearing up towards championship. 4901 uses the AM14U kit chasis with kit https://www.andymark.com/product-p/am-2256.htm wheels.
We’ve been through 2 Regional events with them and we have “burned-rubber” with them as I call it. In fact by the end of the Orlando Regional where we played out primary role as inbounder/defender we burned all the tread off of the wheels by then of the finals. This might have been because of our weight. We were playing in my mind, pretty solid defense and we only weighed 77 pounds without bumpers/battery.
I’m looking into the possibility of purchasing a different set of wheels that could potentially give us even more traction. Almost to the level of this if you’d like a refrence http://www.chiefdelphi.com/media/photos/39365
Has anyone got any suggestions on high traction 4" wheel types that they use and why/why not it would be a good idea to incorporate them into our drive train?
Our team has always loved high traction drives but hate the maintenance of changing out wedgetop or roughtop tread. Blue Nitrile I’ve heard pretty much never wears down however losing a tread in a match has happened to us and others in matches so for a critical component like your drive train I am always a fan of solid wheels.
This year after many success stories from local teams like 125, 228, 558, and 2168 we gave Colsons a try this year (4" x 1 1/2") and we love them. Very smooth ride and they have lots of grip. We haven’t noticed any wear after tons of practice plus two competitions.
VersaWheels all the way. They’re pretty much dirt cheap, and way outperform the kit wheels IMO. I prefer the traditional W tread pattern for grip over the DTs, but your mileage may vary.
VEXPro traction wheels (the ones you linked to) with a kind of roughtop tread on them (McMaster Blue Nitrile is famous for never wearing out) are an excellent choice, and many teams use them with success.
Just switched the AM14U on our practice robot to these today. We’re loving it so far. If you’d like any details on our implementation, feel free to reply or PM me.
Another vote for both the Versa Wheels (W-tread) and blue nitrile roughtop tread. My favorite two drive systems I’ve worked with are 116’s in 2007, which utilized AndyMark performance wheels with nitrile roughtop tread, and 1712’s this year, which uses 4" w-tread Versa Wheels. Both offer absolutely excellent traction.
The Versa Wheels do wear quickly, and should be replaced after each event (at a minimum), but they are dirt cheap, robust, and exceed our performance expectations. Given your low weight, spinning out your drive may result in even faster wear, but I have no data to support this hypothesis.
Nitrile tread tends to be a little more work intensive, as you have to size and mount the treads yourself. Additionally, the wheel options tend to be more expensive, especially once you factor in the tread and fastener cost. But the wear (on carpet anyway) is minimal and the traction results are excellent.
While everyone posting here may be correct - I would venture to say that your light weight is just as much the cause of the problem if you are truly as defensive as you claim. Pushing force is a function of coefficient of friction, weight, and motor strength. Our kitbot wheels did a pretty good job pushing a defensive robot around in our last match (didn’t work, because we were pushing back instead of scoring - but it felt good) but I did see some wear on the dropped center wheels as a result. We’re not changing wheels before DC…but we’ll take spares for the center pair.
Speaking as someone from the team who built that robot in your reference image, I can personally say that we have been very happy with the traction and durability of the VexPro 4" Traction wheels with their corresponding roughtop tread (We’ve used the McMaster Blue Nitrile that Andrew suggested above, but found cutting it to the correct size can be a pain).
I would imagine that 4" VexPro Traction wheels (in a 1" wide configuration) could be used interchangeably with your kitbot wheels (use the guide orangemoore posted).
Another great benefit to using a wheel with replaceable tread is that you restore your wheels to like-new condition without having to completely replace them (which, depending on the wheels, can be quite costly). With replaceable tread, for the cost of two cheap 4" wheels, you can replace the tread on more than six. On top of that, they give you a lot more options for tread variety.
After playing a LOT of defense at Kettering our wheels are still in very good shape. It’s quite possible we’ll go all season without changing the tread like we have for several years now (though will all the defense this year, we MIGHT end up having to change them out once, but that’s what swap spares are for).
We used straight-cut Colson 4" x 1.5" wheels, inspired by MORT’s design this year.
Absolutely brutal traction. The treading makes them wear a bit faster than is typical of Colsons, but after one event they’re certainty still good for a couple more. Highly recommended.
I’m not quite sure what kind of experience others have had with wear on blue nitrile, but from my experience I would say it most definitely does wear out.
Obviously, weight and use will be factors, but on our ~120lbs 6wd’s, the center wheel is usually completely smooth after 1 event and some practice. This definitely affects traction. We switched last year to colsons and have never looked back. Roughtop and Wedgetop probably have more raw traction, but never having to deal with tread is so nice.
Regardless of what wheels you end up going with, you’re not going to get the results you’re after without adding a significant bit of weight to your machine.
W-Tread profile Versa Wheels are hands down the most ‘grippy’ wheel for FRC that right off the shelf, especially when cost, weight, and other factors are taken into account. We ran these wheels in 2013, and are running them again this year and have yet to find an instance where we needed more traction - outside of situations were we were being defended and or defending multiple robots.
Colsons with custom treads are probably the second best option, but are going to end up being a bit more expensive and a touch more complicated to use than the W-tread Versa Wheels. 11, 125, 228, 558, 2168, etc all swear by these wheels, and as far as I’ve seen, they hold their own against just about everything.
All of that being said, if you plan on playing heavy contact defense, you’re going to want to be at least 100lbs or so, since weight is one of the primary factors in ‘traction’ and/or ‘pushing’ power… At 77lbs, you’d effectively need 50% more traction than a machine at 120lbs to even be able think about playing proper contact defense, otherwise your drive is going to quickly overpower your wheels and cause them to spin in place which is going to accelerate wear no matter which wheels you use.
Yeah, blue nitrile most definitely wears out, though I believe we got 2 events out of our wheels last year, switching the middles before elims at our second event. However, I wouldn’t expect everyone to get this kind of wear, considering the fact that we were 90lbs with 2" wide wheels.
MOE is using this this year and we found a band saw cuts it with ease. Just buy 1 linear foot of the 1 foot wide sheets (if using 4 inch wheels wider options available for larger wheels) set up a guide the width of the wheel away from the bade, and push it through tread down. This gets you 11-12 1 inch wide wheels worth depending on how well you spaced your guide.
Also, I’ll throw in a vote for Colsons and AM Performance with Blue Nitrile, used both, like both, sorry, no concrete data. Just make sure you use all 6 bolt holes we sheared off a wheel that had only 3 bolts the other day
I was wondering if anyone has used Banebots new “ground flat Colsons” and seen how they compare to regular Colsons.
