Removable or permanent casters? Why or why not?

No it doesn't matter if they stick into the port a bit.

If your casters are permanent, and you want the cab to couple w/ the floor, you just put it on its side. The argument against permanent casters is that they will rattle when you are floor-coupling and they are on the side, but I've never had a problem with this. Bottom line, I like all casters, permanent or not.

 

removable - casters wear out- until you replace them with really good ones.

 

i'll vote removable.

1 reason is because what if you wanted to fit your cab into a trunk or somethin like that and the casters were in the way? You would say "shoulda got removables"...

I have a set for my ernie ball 212 cabinet.

 

permanent casters are great because you can take em off to fit inside the truck of my car. At least for me, they are convient for that reason. Plus, if you do need to replace them, you dont need to get the new brackets, just the wheels.

When it comes down to it, they do the same thing.

 

You mean removable?

 

I say removable unless they are the kind that you tilt the cab back onto.

 

I voted for... permanent. The major reason being I have 1 cabinet with removable and they have an annoying habit of slipping part-way out if they momentarily lose contact with the ground. I don't know if this is a common problem or not.

Also, re: the "removable are better because you just have to replace the wheels & not the brackets" comments... you'd have to look at the options in your area, but here I wouldn't be able to just purchase the "wheels"... without also purchasing the brackets they fit into.

FWIW I have never encountered the situation with my permanent castor equipped cabs where the car door/trunk etc would close... if it wasn’t for those castors. I'm sure it has happened to some unlucky person though...

 

Removable = easily replaceable.

Your mileage may vary.

 

The removable casters on my mesa cab have not had any issues of falling off or failing. They kinda slide into a mounting plate with a spring loaded button to hold em in. They seem super heavy duty, and it is convenient to remove them when piling my rig into my Volkswagen. So.. I vote high quality removeable casters!

 

When I removable, they were either hard to remove or removed themselves while moving the cab off a curb or stairs.

The ones that screw on the bottom are easier to install. After the purchase popouts require removing a speaker and cleaning out the sawdust from drilling the hole, too.

I bet the kind that slide out on a plate would be best of both worlds. And of course the ones that screw on the bottom can be unscrewed and a new one put on in the same spot...they're not really permanent, just "fixed."

FWIW, I've enjoyed have a cab on wheels that's not coupled...sometimes there's phase cancellation from the space below or a really boomy note from really good coupling.

 

The Ernie Ball removable casters rule. They've been on my cabs for many years, I have had to replace 2 of them. The wheels split. They more than likely would have split if they were "permanent" ones anyway. I bought another set to have 4 replacements. It's not like they're particularly expensive.

The issue with the "permanent" ones is that the force of hitting cracks in the sidewalk or whatever you jar the wheels on goes directly to the 4 screws holding the caster in. Over time the screws pull out of the wood and you have to rotate the base of the caster and redrill to get a fresh "bite" into the wood. Once that caster has been rotated again and again the wood around the caster is a series of screw holes.

The removable caster transfers the force to the housing which is dissipated between the "female" end into the cabinet as well as the screws holding the housing in.

 

That's why I didn't use wood screws for the permanent casters under my Trace cab. Pulled the speaker out, drilled holes through the wood and installed the casters using bolts and nuts (the locking kind, so they don't accidentaly come loose anyway).

BTW at the time I didn't know there was such a thing as "ground coupling", but this cab is big enough to still sound good, with or without ground coupling. In fact, I hardly use it anymore because it is so huge it doesn't fit in the trunk of my car

 

There's a third choice: a dolly. My old B15N has a dolly attached to the bottom of the cab with a big-knob screw. And my Hartke 410XL sits on a Carvin dolly. Best of both worlds. The wheels are there when it's moving, and not when it's not.

 

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