Our team has never had to replace wheels in the past but that is probably due to ignorance. How do you know when to replace wheels. If we’re running 6" colsons as measured with a pair of calipers, when would we know our wheels are too small?
When your bellypan hits the ground. Colsons usually live whole seasons on a robot.
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What about… blue nitrile
We have worn through the treads on colsons in a season. When the black core of the wheel starts showing it is time to replace. If your odometry depends on an accurate wheel diameter, you should probably replace them sooner as I think the tread is about 1/4" so when you wear through the tread your 4" wheels are actually 3.5" diameter.
We replaced our blue nitrile each morning at competition (twice a competition for districts and DCMP, three times for CMP).
3/4" sounds like a lot that would make a 6" wheel a 5-1/4" wheel.
6" aluminum blue nitrile wheels are expensive. Sure you could get plastic but with robots going frequently over the bump, id assume they’d be susceptible to cracking.
So 1/4" offset from the core. Not 1/4" total wear as that would only be a 3-3/4" Wheel.
Blue nitrile is a different story. Like replace ALOT.
How often should one be replacing blue nitrile?
Every event at minimum, it wears down very quickly.
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1/4" thick tread, so 1/4" off the radius, 1/2" off the diameter.
The bottom line is that you should replace wheels when they begin to impact your performance negatively. This performance hit may be due to loss of tread pattern or change in diameter. If you use high durometer wheels like those in the KoP and don’t get into regular pushing matches, you should be able to get through a season (3-4 events plus a moderate amount of practice) without a change. Blue nitrile might require a change between quals and elims every event, perhaps more.
If the wheels dont break but the tread has worn, how easy is it to re-tread the wheel?
Any comments on what wear to expect with six 8-inch pneumatics? I’m guessing drop centers wear faster, so maybe rotate wheels periodically? Thanks
We re-used our Stronghold wheels/tires last year and played 8 events (including offseasons) plus several demonstrations this year with them without much noticeable wear.
We did shatter a wheel during two-day demo because someone decided to play heavy defense against one of our rookie drivers. But those were the old plastic ones and we were just too cheap to upgrade to aluminum ones.
Depends greatly on the wheel. Many wheels are not designed for tread changes (KoP, Colson, most intake wheels), some are (plaction & performance).
I meant the plaction blue nitrile. I know it can be retreaded but how easy and fast of a fix is that?
Don’t use the alligator clips. Quite difficult to get on tight and smooth.
https://www.andymark.com/products/alligator-clips-8-clips-4-pins-for-plaction-wheel-tread
Most teams who replace tread drill holes in the wheel, and matching holes in the tread, and rivet the tread in place from the outside. I haven’t done this myself, but it seems to me that once you have the holes drilled, it goes pretty quickly. I’ve seen plenty of topics describing this.
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