So obviously in Change Up most people attempt to make their intakes contact at the center of the ball (3.15"). The issue that I have continually faced with this is that the roller is limited in how low it can be placed by the presence of the wheel. Since my drivetrain is not super wide (to allow sideskirts), the wheel falls near or directly under where the intake needs to be (24t sprocket china rollers). The best solution I’ve found to get around this is just doing a thin back roller which is the one over the wheel and a normal width front roller and then lowering that one to the height of the midsection. This has all been done in CAD so I haven’t been able to test how efficient it is. The other problem is that even if the intakes are somehow placed inside the wheels, they need to be able to pivot outwards to descore the center, meaning they will hit. That adds another dimension of difficulty so it is basically impossible to get the back roller below 3.50" inches or so (and that’s with 3.25" omnis of course).
How were you able to get your intakes as low as possible?
Do your intake rollers hit exactly on that center stripe of the ball or are they higher??
Do you use intakes which can descore the center tower?
Are you using china rollers or traditional unstaggered intakes?
Are intakes that contact above the center point of the ball inefficient or useless in your experience?
I am very interested in hearing everyone’s experience or ideas about this, so please share.
I only really have a quarter of an inch worth of space from my intake and wheel, mind you I am using flaps so that makes my intakes slightly longer than a 3.25 traction wheel.
My intake rollers do not hit the center of the ball. I have the same issue as you with my wheel being in the way. However I was able to tune my intake and they were able to work magic regardless. Plus you need to take into account that when descoring the balls will come in to your intakes at a higher point of entry.
Yes my intakes can descore from all towers including the middle ones.
Staggered intakes so that my intakes can wrap around the center goal. However, that is not necessary as we’ve seen teams be able to ‘punch-out’ the center goal balls without running their intakes.
I am using 3.25 traction wheels at the back and flap rollers on 18 tooth sprockets at the front.
In my experience, that would be a big NO. Your intakes all depend on the correct spacing, speed, and compression to be efficient. Remember, every robot has different intakes, so each robot’s specifications to make a good intake are different. Make sure to take your time and test out after each fine-tune to make sure it is just right.
Good point about the bump on the outer edge of the intake. Also yeah I know about punching out the balls and I’ve seen it done amazingly fast by 10955M. The only reason I don’t do that is because I think it is overall simpler and more efficient if you can descore by running the intakes. It makes more sense than doing it one at a time and you can collect the balls from the goal then.
Absolutely. I am pretty confident my design will have a good chance of working then. Thanks for the help and all of the details cause those are exactly what I am looking for. It’s been really hard to design this year for the obvious reason of coronavirus. Optimally I would have gotten parts from my HS right back in March and been able to start experimenting with different auton methods and building new designs, but we couldn’t get into our school until last weekend.
I use 3.25" wheels so I have a bit more clearance. but yes, it is very tight. You could have some sort of flip down if you really want 4" wheels and can’t fit folding intakes.
I use 3.25 in omnis but they don’t affect me. What does is the 2.5 inch omnis because you can think of them as an anti tip but they are a structured piece. This is below my intakes and took me a while in cad to make sure it was as close to the center as possible. Here is a picure of that anti tip thing if you are wondering.
Flip down wouldn’t help cause of the whole descoring center tower issue. I have 3.25" wheels on my current design, my last 2 designs were both x-drives with 4" wheels and it just bugged me how hard that made designing intakes. I finally switched to tank for simplicity and so I could have a super fast drive without 4" wheels. I am really curious if 4478d, 2381c, and 41091a are running 4" or 3.25" wheels. Those are the best 3 x-drives I know of. 4478d has ratchet intakes, 2381c has flip down, and 41091a has horizontal flipouts which simply avoid hitting the wheels by a small margin.
Thanks for the information. Trying to learn as much as I can from others to make up for the testing I hadn’t been able to do.
