Has anyone testing Colson wheels on swerve seen considerable static buildup? As we have been testing we found that the wheels consistently build up static when driving. Temporarily we have fixed this with a dangling wire for grounding. The standard billet wheels don’t seem to have this problem as likely they are grounded through the screws holding on the tread. We are also fairly positive that the static buildup is due to the wheels themselves as it happens only when they are touching the ground and driving
What is a typical solution to static buildup due to wheels?
I can say that running MaxSwerve we have yet to use aluminum wheels and haven’t noticed any static. We’ve used the plastic wheels or 3D printed TPU wheels and neither seem to create any static on linoleum or carpet
I have never seen this. We used Colson wheels on competition robots in 2014, 2017, 2018, and 2020, and have been running Colsons on two working swerve robots this fall (MK4 and MK4i). As we get deeper into winter and colder weather, we may see this change. I’ll be on the lookout.
We have seen significant static charge build-up while using Colson wheels and also the mostly plastic Vex Mecanum wheels. Our solution has been to hang a short length of bead chain from the frame to barely drag on the carpet.
It was a bigger problem with the C-RIO, which would actually reset when the robot discharged to a field element.
wheelchair users with static issues tend to put a length of metallic tinsel skimming the ground, i would assume it would work under a robot? It’s pretty gentle on floors compared to other methods
You don’t need to actually touch the ground. You can use the lightning rod method. Last year we found out at the Great Northern Regional 2023, the new flooring and its flooring covers were prime for generating charge so much that when we ran tethered, we destroyed the network ports during practice field sessions. We unfolded two-paper clips, and attached it to metal parts of our drive train. No more ESD events!
Concept works similarly for lightning rods and static wicks:
Similarly fun experiments can be done with Van De Graaf generators. Turn one on, touch it, notice that the ESD event. Turn one on after adding a pointed paperclip, little to no ESD event.
