Best Drive Train
 

What type of drive train do you guys think is the best in terms of speed, pushing force, agility (mobility), durability, and overall efficiency? Typically, my team uses regular Tank drive, though we did experiment with Mecanums a few years back.

Drivetrains:

Tank
Mecanum
Holonomic
Slide
Swerve
Any others?

Re: Best Drive Train
 

Where is the Jump Drive?

Re: Best Drive Train
 

Ya, the 2 big names you left off were Octocanum and Nonadrive.

Re: Best Drive Train
 

Swerve has always seemed to me like an unambiguous favorite if you have a good, light design and the resources to pull it off cleanly.

This offseason, 4464 is going to be looking at designing nonadrive/octanum, as that seems reasonably within our machining capabilities (we can do lasercut 1/4'' delrin, which ought to be sufficient for the wheel modules if they're designed properly) and offers a significant, strict increase in performance over slide drive/mecanum.

Re: Best Drive Train
 

100% of all nine-sided drive base robots have won einstein.

Re: Best Drive Train
 

I chuckled.

Re: Best Drive Train
 

Whatever works for your strategy.

Re: Best Drive Train
 

Quoted for truth. It took me a while to learn this, but in FRC, there is no universal "best" anything. Whatever works best for your team is going to give you the best results (that being said, 10 wheel nonacanumswerve drive isn't the best drivetrain).

Re: Best Drive Train
 

Some intrepid CADer should take the initiative and draw up a design of this for all of our entertainment. :P

Re: Best Drive Train
 

...and is within the resources (cost, machining, etc) for your team.

Re: Best Drive Train
 

Isn't tank drive the naming convention for the style of controls? Either way, if your using tank drive you MUST drop those center wheels. Otherwise the drive system will be useless because you wont be able to maneuver well...

Re: Best Drive Train
 

Shouldn't those factor into your strategy? ;)

NOT true at all. If your wheel base is wider than it is long... or actually, just read Chris' paper http://www.chiefdelphi.com/media/papers/1443

Re: Best Drive Train
 

Sorry my version of tank drive has been corrupted over the years due to how we ALWAYS have had 6-8 wheel drive and a long bot at that....:p forgot about the wide bots....

Re: Best Drive Train
 

On Truck Town we like tank because it works well with our transmissions that shift from low to high gear. But I would like to experiment with other drive systems and wheels, because who wouldn't want to use beast wheels like 25? :ahh: :ahh:

Re: Best Drive Train
 

But I also like mecanum, maybe not for our team, but for other younger teams. They get the versatility that they want without taking on the challenge of swerve, that some of the best, most experienced teams can't conquer. Just like 2010! *shutters* :(