Hi. We’re trying to make a spinning wheel to shoot triballs to other side of the field for over under. We saw a team do this at a comp, recreated it, but it’s not working as we intended. Please could someone help? (Note: we have already tried increasing motor torque/speed and this increases power, but not distance!)
I am trying to attach a video or picture but it is not working?!
Its essentially a vertical structure with a gear on a shaft through a motor and a wheel on a shaft on top
Flywheel?
Windmill?
Search youtube for some
This button. If you can’t, just attach a link to a google drive file (with link sharing on).
Don’t increase torque, increase speed. Try using a larger diameter wheel or a flywheel weight.
If that doesn’t work, just change the angle/position where you put the triball on.
Are you just using a normal wheel? Like a traction or omni. If you are using a traction or omni wheel make sure to add rubber bands to the outside of the wheel as they grip the triball better with them. If you are using a flexwheel in my experience the light gray kind is best as it is the most sticky.
Also are you using a blue motor? if you aren’t there is a lot more friction as you are having to change the gear ratios a lot more so I recommend to use a blue one.
Make sure that you have ball bearings : 
These work really well to reduce friction. In my tests without ball bearing to one with. I got a 500 RPM increase in speed.
Also make sure you are using one of these ratios : 84 : 12 , 60: 12 for a nice high speed.
These are just general things that you can do to make your flywheel better.
We just chain it 30/6 on a 600 RPM motor to get a top speed of 3000 RPM but we run it at like 550 RPM to get a total of 2750 RPM
The bearings have a lot of drag because they are packed with grease. They were designed to go into equipment that will run 24x7 for years. It will not hurt to remove the grease (electronic cleaner from auto zone). Yes it will shorten their life. No it won’t matter. But they will turn MUCH more freely.
Thanks so much guys. Were using a grey tranction wheel normal black motors. Will pass on info to our coder
When you spin the flywheel, do you hear the sound of jingle bells?
You do not need to use ball bearings. But, I would highly recommend that you use the block bearings. It looks like a tootsie roll with 3 holes in it. Use 2 of the holes to screw the block bearings onto your robot, and the shaft can go through the third. **Every shaft on the bot should be supported by 2 of these. Every single one. **
How do i use flywheel weights? (Where to put)
Sorry, i am fairly new to this, learning as i go along and receiving minimal help!
Judging from your previous posts, it looks like your flywheel (without the weight) is operating well.
Link to the product page:
V5 Flywheel Weight (2-pack) - VEX Robotics
To mount, use the red holes to connect it to your traction wheels
Flywheel weights make your launcher change speed slower (it’ll be harder to speed up, but once it does, it slows down less when a triball is launched, allowing you to matchload quicker).
The flywheel weight adds more weight to the spinning thing, meaning it takes more energy to accelerate/decelerate it.
I would put some bearings on it,
As a general rule of thumb put bearings/bushings on anything that spins :
Another thing to reduce friction don’t put a collar right up against the metal.
As this causes friction metal to metal and directly slows down your shaft, instead put a small spacer inbetween the metal and the collar as the spacers dont follow the movement of the shaft and move freely, this will reduce your friction a whole lot.
Another thing I would recommend is to add standoffs, this makes it stronger and less likely to bend and it also makes it not shake as much.
Overall, these are just general improvements and in my experience make the flywheel a bit stronger(resistant to bending) ,quieter, and shoot futher.
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