How much weight can a wheel take ?

[Mapoko]

Hello. Where can I see how many tones can a wheel take ?

I am trying to make a cistern that will drill for karbonite, make fuel, then via KAS fuel my planes, so I can simulate reuse. Not just "recover" it from landing strip and relaunch it with full tanks.

But while moving my cistern is just unreliable. Making it store less fuel starting to make it not worth the hassle.

[jarmund]

Damn you for triggering my curiosity. I need to know now.

Have some rep while I subscribe to this thread and start wearing out my F5 key.

[micr0wave]

Have you considered using landing gear and some propulsion ? (the Propeller engines for example)

[Mapoko]

If we consider "Impact tolerance" = 2000 that means 2 tons with 1m/s in 1g.

I did split my rig for now.

It seems that it considers the total mass of the vessel when moving down a slope, so when only 1 wheel touches the slope, but the other 7 (or 9) are firmly on the other plane it considers the full inertia + mass of the vessel forced on 1 wheel and breaks it.

With the full rig I used 10, even 12 wheels and they always break on the same terrain. I did split it into 2 with the added mass of 2 Docking port Sr and 2x 4 wheels are more than enough.

About using landing gear + propulsion hardly seems realistic in my eyes.

Now I am considering splitting the refinery and the cistern.

[micr0wave]

but it works for me

[Pecan]

Hehe - get IR and make a walking rig instead of using wheels.

[celem]

I used to build ground based reactors/power transmittors for the Interstellar mod, had a couple of vehicles that I drove several kilometers across Kerbin that were in excess of 100 tonnes. I was using about 18 of the biggest rover wheels and even got away with warping a bit at 2x while driving on dead-flat. I found that attaching the wheels directly to the body caused more breakages then when mounted to girder 'suspension', when you pass over folds in the ground the wheels twitch and try to reorient, but each does so as it hits the change, if you dont meet changes in slope pretty head-on then a pair of wheels flexing out of synch can cause twisting and more breakage. Regardless, I managed to get them off the runway, down the slope and off up onto the dark green grass 3km or so West. Even drove one down to the waters edge and parked it on a hill.

[Mapoko]

Thanks!

So, basically building a frame with wheels and then putting the tank over it is the way to go.

I have [0.25] Adjustable Landing Gear v1.0.4(doors fixed) - Nov 14 which are better looking than stock, but still feels a bit unnatural in my eyes. They also come with very weak motors.

I will try to be creative and make a frame.

Maybe my biggest flaw is that I try to make really huge cistern with 5k LF, 6K Ox, 6-8 drills and converters in 1 go, so I can refuel my mk3/4 carriers.

It worked pretty well with 2K LF 2K Ox tank and only 2 drills with only 4 wheels.

I guess 1 big refinery and 2 small cisterns is the way to go. But I still want to have huge 5m tank So my drills will not be idle. It will go there empty, then possibly use landing legs as well to stabilize my rig and use the small trucks.

The problem is that even the empty 5m tank seems too heavy to move.

I am planning to colonize Mun, Minmus, Ike and Duna and I know the gravity there is lower, so those problems will not exist, BUT when I think about Eve ... That is why I want to make them stable on Kerbin.

EDIT : ofcourse I can chop the rig into pieces, but I have problem docking things on ground.

On my rig when I separate the 2 docks the weight of the load tilts the rig, because of wheels' suspension and I can not re-dock.

I can not find enable/disable suspension option on the stock wheels.

Edited April 9, 2015 by Mapoko

[micr0wave]

For docking on ground with changing weights, maybe adding landing legs could help to keep one of the parts in one place, those have that supension lock.

I had one 'vehicle' using that adjustable landing gear on eve which looked like it'll break any moment as soon i had loaded some cargo, but i probably didn't do the dampener/spring settings right. The stock gear worked better for me.