Carbon Fiber Wheel Hubs
Carbon Fiber Wheel Hubs
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A photo of the first vacuum bag layup I performed.
Vacuum bag carbon fiber layup to maintain strength while cutting weight
Vacuum bag carbon fiber layup to maintain strength while cutting weight
Our rover was running dangerously close to URC's competition weight limit, and we deemed our old high-infill PLA wheel hubs to be one of the easiest components overhaul/cut weight from. Thus, I designed and manufactured some carbon fiber wheel hubs for our rover.
I imported the wheel geometry into Onshape and tailored the hub profile to the internal curvature and motor shaft offset. The external mold was wood-lathed against a laser-cut acrylic reference and sealed with epoxy. I then ran a 3-ply vacuum-bag wet layup, and after curing I post-processed the hubs on a Tormach PCNC 440 to clean up excess resin and stage the screw holes.
The finished hubs came out 50% lighter than the PLA originals and ran on the rover.
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