Since the beginning of the year when we had a full court flywheel we decided to change the robots design for the Regional and Open tournaments. And like many others we decided to have a bar shooting single flywheel with a puncher on the side for match loads. The flywheel seems to have enough and shoots high enough, and the intake is vertical therefore it shoots straight up, then slowly drifts backwards. I’m just having trouble getting the ball to get from the flywheel and into the net. Any suggestions? A hood? Mounting the intake at a lower angle?(Will post pictures soon)
If you don’t have a hood you definitely need it. A hood is necessary for a vertical intake. Once you add the hood, your problem should be solved, and all you will have to do is find optimal angle and compression. Hope this helps!
Yes a hood is definitely needed.
What method are you all using for the hood? I’ve thought of using plates or bars, but I don’t know if they have too much give. But the other metal is harder to bend at a curve.
Most designs I’ve seen use plates. If you’re worried about it bending too easily, you could try doubling or tripling up the plates.
We use a metal plate bent to a curved shape to accommodate the flywheel.
You may want to look at sheet plastic as material for your hood; as you can bend it into the shape you want the hood to be and attach it just as easily by drilling holes for bolts or zip ties
Lexan is an easy and efficient way to construct a hood if you are having issues with metal. It’s fairly cheap and you can buy it in bulk. What you’d want to do is find a 5 hole wide plate and mark holes on the lexan where the holes on the metal would be. Once you drill 4 of them out you can adjust the angle in which the hood is attached.
For the single flywheel bar shots, what would be the ideal motor use? At the moment I am using 4 high speed motors and 2 5" wheels. But I am considering removing one of the motors but do not know if it will have the power to turn the flywheel with only 3.
Have three high torque motors geared 25:1
We had a 3 motor flywheel powering two 5" wheels at a 24:1 gear ratio that worked well.
It depends a lot on the gear ration your using. A cleanly built system with minimized friction can use a 7:1 gear ration with turbo motors (2.4 : 1) that will shoot the bar shot 4 bps. on 5" wheels
You could try using the small wheels as a sort of hood. We use free spinning small wheels which causes less friction than a normal hood.
That’s interesting, I’ve never heard of anyone putting free spinning wheels as a hood. For the hood, I’ve always found that more friction is better. How well does your system work? 10bps? Lol
So would 3 or 4 high torque motors on a 25:1 gear ratio be good?
You could run close to full field with that if not full field depending on compression, angle, and friction
I would recommend using four High torque motors for a 25:1 . On our robot we use that and we can shoot further than half court. It all depend on how you make the compression .
Well what would be the best configuration with motor speed for bar shots with a faster bps
If you have the 4 motors to use, put them on the flywheel at anywhere from 25 - 32 : 1 and you’ll be able to not only shoot full court, but also to have a very rapid bar shot. I use 4 motors on my flywheel and can shoot more than four balls per second up at the bar but I can still shoot the full court shot. You will just need a velocity controller.
Would 6 high torque motors 21:1 work for fielding?
Should I use 4 in or 5 in wheels?