I saw a lot of teams last year have silicon rollers for their intakes, I am not sure if we can just buy them and have heard it is a painful process to make them. Just want to understand what I need to make it myself.
Can’t be many teams spinning their own silicon…
For silicone:
It’s not too bad , just need an air compressor and a sturdy plug, at least for latex.
You can buy the material for silicone rollers from WCP
You can also try latex tubing (oversized surgical tubing) from McMaster.
It’s also worth noting lots of tube roller hardware (pulleys, hubs, etc) now exist as FRC vendor COTS, making it a relatively painless process to slap together.
It’s a relatively straightforward process, you just need to be able to achieve the right temperature.
(This is a joke. You probably mean silicone, or more likely, the urethane materials that are commonly used for compliant/grippy wheels.)
Thank you. Is there a rule of thumb for sizing silicone? For determining what ID tubing you need for a certain size tube? We were wanting to put it on 1/2" hex shaft.
I haven’t done hex personally, but I would be curious
I suspect wall thickness may be your biggest issue. On round stock gut feel says shoot for wall thickness = 10% of material diameter. On a half inch round that would be .050. maybe interface fit by the same amount?
Depending on the type of hex shaft you are using (rounded vs regular) different sixed tubing may work better due to the difference in perimeters.
I would be interested in the results!
I see. I someone just sent me the video of citrus showing how they did their rollers and it doesn’t seem too bad. But I dont have the air gun that they had, is it a must?
Here is the video in question: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fYKsIe-yMrA&ab_channel=DougDeMuro
Believe WCP says if you have a 1/2" roller you buy their 1/2" tubing.
Is that 1/2" OD?
Similarly, I am looking for a cheaper alternative to the 2-inch Thrifty Squish Wheels which are $3 each. Maybe silicone tubing is a cheaper alternative?
Where do we buy rollers for hex shafts?
This is one popular option: Wheels & Hubs – Tagged "Roller"– WestCoast Products
Yes, so the stretch is equal to the thickness of the silicon tubing…
Awe. That was the video I was looking for but couldn’t find. Glad you posted the link.
Hot air gun is just for polycord belts. Rollers don’t require it. Lots of ways to do polycord if you are interested in that.
No joke - a Jeopardy contestant said the wrong one and lost. Wait - am I that old that I watched Jeopardy?
In the past - and prototyped for this year - we have wrapped self-fusing silicone tape (sometimes called F4 tape, but we source it at home depot) around a pool noodle
This works pretty great. Adds some compliance that the polycarb rollers don’t that squish wheels have.
thank you
This is a great tip.
Thanks for posting this! Do you just rely on the compression of the tape to keep the noodle tight on the shaft? Does it hold up over time?
In this video, there is a hex shaft which is attached to a PVC tube which matches the ID of the hole in the noodle. The noodle is attached to the PVC, and then tape is applied to the outside of the noodle.
You could use some glue of some kind to attach the noodle to the PVC - I can’t remember how we did it here.
Thanks