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because sometimes your wheels limit your axle thickness

Draylon Fogg wrote:because sometimes your wheels limit your axle thickness

So... Make wheels? Its called a drill and some time lol that's what we did... And it works very well

but homemade wheels arent always as effective

I tried homemade wheels. They're pretty hard to make perfectly round and with the hole perfectly in the center unless you have good tools, which I don't. I find CD wheels to be perfectly fine and much more consistent than the ones I tried to make myself.

Gillen wrote:I tried homemade wheels. They're pretty hard to make perfectly round and with the hole perfectly in the center unless you have good tools, which I don't. I find CD wheels to be perfectly fine and much more consistent than the ones I tried to make myself.

Use a lathe, or find wood disks...

What is the advantage to using homemade wheels? CDs have worked great for me, and they are quite lightweight too... You can simply add a balloon around the edge to give. The excellent traction.

illusionist wrote:What is the advantage to using homemade wheels? CDs have worked great for me, and they are quite lightweight too... You can simply add a balloon around the edge to give. The excellent traction.

being able to build a wheel with any diameter
i personally think CD's are fine and will work. but for a little bit of effort you could make some aluminum wheels that are twice as thick and half the weight of a CD. all you need is a true-spinning drill or a drill press.

i also think a 12 cm diameter CD wheel is a little overkill. really the smaller the better in my opinion. i think mini CD wheels would work really well 8cm diameter verses 12 cm.

Larger wheels allow for greater speeds (of course there are other variables too). Smaller wheels require more turns of the string to go the same distance as fewer winds with the large wheels.

illusionist wrote:Larger wheels allow for greater speeds (of course there are other variables too). Smaller wheels require more turns of the string to go the same distance as fewer winds with the large wheels.

as speed is a factor, but if your trading speed for accurice than in my opinion its a mistake. id rather hit the line exactly with my home-cut wheels b/c the axel is large enough with the wheels that i can pinpoint the # of winds much easier and do it more consistantly.

speed is important, but accuracy is more in this event

mrsteven wrote:

illusionist wrote:Larger wheels allow for greater speeds (of course there are other variables too). Smaller wheels require more turns of the string to go the same distance as fewer winds with the large wheels.

as speed is a factor, but if your trading speed for accurice than in my opinion its a mistake. id rather hit the line exactly with my home-cut wheels b/c the axel is large enough with the wheels that i can pinpoint the # of winds much easier and do it more consistantly.

speed is important, but accuracy is more in this event

Illusionist mentioned nothing about home-cut vs store bought wheels in what you quoted. Even if you cut your own wheels, a larger circumference will do faster than a smaller circumference. Also, by states, the top teams will all be very close to the line and have a close distance score, the 2 points per second is going to act like a tiebreaker of sorts, even more so at nationals, where it is 4 points per second and the good vehicles will all be having a distance score of 0-2.