Wheel Choice for Flywheel Launchers

[StoweBots]

Agree, your rotational Inertia must be huge + friction, if you don’t kill a motor soon I’d be surprised.
We’ve gone for 1:21 gear ratio with single 4" wheels, we also set it up with as few gears as we can + a ratchet gear to limit motor damage.

WAY too much weight, and that interconnected gearing is causing unnecessary friction. I speak from experience building about 10 different prototypes of these things. Also switch to two 4 inch wheels or something those 5 inches are way too heavy and don’t do the job any better.

[sjhuddleston]

WAY too much weight, and that interconnected gearing is causing unnecessary friction. I speak from experience building about 10 different prototypes of these things. Also switch to two 4 inch wheels or something those 5 inches are way too heavy and don’t do the job any better.

agreed we made so many with the 5" and couldnt get it up to speed

[JustinM]

WAY too much weight, and that interconnected gearing is causing unnecessary friction. I speak from experience building about 10 different prototypes of these things. Also switch to two 4 inch wheels or something those 5 inches are way too heavy and don’t do the job any better.

There are advantages and disadvantages to wheel choice .Don’t just jump to change everything right away, test and see what works for you individually.
We use them and they work just as good as another one of our teams which uses 4in wheels