My name is Joshua Updyke and I am the president and founder of Tank Chain. We make a modular track system for robotics and other tracked vehicles. In the past month we had the a chance to talk with a few members of the FIRST community and we have been told that our product might be a good fit for other people in the community. We are currently making track for a few teams and in February we will have the chance to spend a day with one of these teams.
I was referred to this website by one of those members and they suggested that I make a post to share how we might be able to help other teams. As a company we support FIRST and wanted to offer our help to all the teams.
We offer a track system that is built around #35 roller chain and meshes with all standard roller chain sprockets of that size. We also are partnered with a company that offers sprockets, shafts, shaft collars and several other chain related items. We can offer complete track kits, or just individual components.
We currently manufacture the track in house and can typically ship within two weeks. If we get a large response our lead time would increase. However, we have already established a working relationship with an injection molding manufacturer who would be able to handle large orders. For injection molding the standard time to get the first parts would be 3 weeks, but we might be able expedite that a little.
If you would like to learn a little more about our product you can visit our website.
Are there any differences in durometer/material between tread colors?
Is there an assembly method that doesn’t involve two spring clips for every link? I would prefer something I could trust a little more than having what is essentially building a chain entirely out of master links.
There is no change in durometer based on the color. The treads are made of a Shore A 70 rubber which is as close to car tire rubber as we could fine.
In order to create a modular system that is easy to change and use in many applications, this was the design we arrived at. We have thought about making ones with chain that can not come apart. However, we have not had any issue with the clips coming off. Roller chain is designed to transmit much higher loads then would be seen in a track application.
We are happy to accept any standard payment option. The website accepts credit cards, and we can send a paypal invoice for anything else. We can do POs via email to handle tax exempt situations as well. I suspect that most people here will qualify for that.
One foot of track weights approximately 532.8 grams (1.17 lbs).
Thanks for the heads up about the latin terms and conditions. Haha. I am gonna have to fix that soon.
if I’m reading your pricing correctly, one link = one piece of chain. For #35, that means 2 links per inch, and if I assume a roughly 30" length for the side of the robot, we are looking at more than $700 per robot for black track (I didn’t price the other colors, so I don’t know if black is cheaper than red, say). That’s pricey.
Thanks for your answers and pro-active approach to community interaction.
I’m not worried about the roller chain itself failing to transmit torque, but rather the spring clip pins coming undone. We’ve seen this every now and then over the years with #35 chain in our FRC drive systems, and that chain was not directly being exposed to the lateral loads that occur in FRC pushing matches. If you do every release a version with friction fit outer plates, I think teams may be more comfortable using this in drivetrain applications.
The other sticking point will likely be price. No track option is going to be cheap, but spending $40 per 12" of track is a tough pill to swallow for more budget-conscious teams.
It would all really depend on the size of the robot. For black track the cost is $40 per foot of track. So if you need 17.5 feet of track then you are right it would cost $700.
We have really done our absolute best to keep the cost down. There are not many track products on the market and we designed this product because we wanted a solution. Another thing to consider is the cost of the hubs to drive track. Every other product like this on the market requires custom hubs. These are expensive and very limited in size. Our design can use all off the shelf #35 sprockets which are much cheaper than custom hubs.
Another thing to consider is the quality of the product. These are not plastic track with pins. Each track is rubber molded around two stainless steel pins and connected with two sections of steel roller chain. It is a very tough product.
The problem with a press fit version is you lock your design to one size loop. So you would have to either order custom made loop which we would manufacture, or design your robot around a standard size which we picked. I was never a fan of your robot being designed around one part. The track should not limit your design but give you options.
Another benefit of a modular design is the ability to replace parts on the fly. If any part of the track gets damaged, you can swap out only the damage parts in a matter of minutes. If anyone is seriously interested in a press fit version, or a welded version send us a message and we can work up a quote. It would not be too difficult to have the plates tig welded to the pins. We could work up a cost for that.
As for the cost, it is $40 for 12 inches, not 6 inches. So you actually get twice as much as you thought. How is that for a deal. haha
In general, when using #35 chain in our drive systems, we purchase chain in 10’ lengths, break it to the length we need, and use a singular master link to join the ends of the chain. If there were a similar option available for this product (though in perhaps less than 10’ segments), it would likely increase appeal somewhat (at least for us).
Apologies about misquoting the price. I simply multiplied 16 links by the pitch of #35 chain, without really thinking about it. I feel silly.
For reference, that length of Brecoflex will set you back $200-300 per side of the machine, not counting the pulleys. The Andymark rhino system is $369 per side (with pulleys/plates/etc). No track system is going to be cheap.
The other option is to provide it like chain is provided - you give us certain fixed-length segments, and have a way built in to use a chain breaker to shorten them. Then rely on a single master link to join it together into a closed loop.
The price, as quoted, really isn’t that bad. A typical FRC robot these days is ~2.5 feet long. Putting treads on them means you need about 10 feet of tread, or $400 worth. Yeah, it’s a bit more expensive than a standard 6-wheel drive train, but so are other options (Like AndyMark’s Rhino Track Drive Module, which is $738 for a standard robot, but it is more than just track).
My bigger concern would be how it turns on normal FRC carpet (for this year, Shaw Floors, Philadelphia Commercial, Neyland II 20, 30352, “Scotch Pine”). I’d love to see a “typical” robot (30"x30" square, weighted to a total of 150 lbs) setup with this for its drive train, and driven around on FRC carpet. I’ve seen plenty of robots with tank treads have trouble turning during competition before!
While trying to fill my cart on my iPhone, the starter kit isn’t an option, which is why I went by the per link price; it’s all I could see. Still, I think we’d need around 72" per side, and we are building two robots.
We manufacture the track in house and have inventory to make quite a few more tracks. Typical orders ship within 2 weeks or the order, but we shoot for having them in the mail in a 1 week turn around. We will do everything we can to ship orders ASAP because we understand that teams are working with a limited amount of time.
We are a growing company, and have plans for scaling up production. But there are obviously some limitations. We have some options to increase our in house production capabilities in the short term. But ideally we would like to get enough orders where we could get a run injection molded at our partner company. This would be approximately 25 orders. The lead time on that is 15 business days, but we might be able to expedite that because we have a good working relationship with this company and the ground work for this order has already been laid.
All I can say is we will do everything in our power to get track to anyone that wants it. And we will do everything we can to ship part out as quickly as possible.
I agree with the concept. It is a little more complicated because the tread piece in the middle. We replace the pins in the roller chain with much longer ones that travel through the whole tread. We will add a press fit version to our R&D work.
We do have one FIRST team who already has the tracks on their robot. I will contact them and see if they are willing to post some picture / videos of their robot. I know they were still working on their robot, but they were really happy with the product. I will actually be visiting them Feb 5th, to spend the day with the school giving a presentation.
We are open to all comments and look at this as a way to improve our design.
None of the standard color change the turn around time. However, if someone wanted periwinkle blue or another specific color it might be a little longer. haha
Black is the most popular color for industrial applications. But I get the feeling that colored options would be more popular in FIRST robotics. We can also offer an educational discount on the colored tracks.
