pic: 1625swervecad
 

Re: pic: 1625swervecad
 

Wow! It looks really nice! Great job, how are the wheels powered, what kind of motor swerves it? I can't tell from this angle, and distance.

I bet you could do a crazy control system with a (x, y, z) axis joystick!

Re: pic: 1625swervecad
 

It would appear that each module is powered by a CIM motor, and that all 4 modules are turned by a single window motor (crab style).

Re: pic: 1625swervecad
 

nice design. One thing you might want to consider is connecting the drive modules together so torque is transferred through each wheel. This will be adventitious if any of your wheels looses traction, the torque will be transfered to other wheels, keeping your power high. This is the major downfall of swerve drives, that your total power is the sum of 4 individual modules. compared to a standard drive of adding 2 modules. The change is in overall system efficiency. Although with your design it is possible to avoid this issue.

Re: pic: 1625swervecad
 

each module has its own cim/dewalt 3 speed combo driving it. and the vandoor motor to rotate them all i chose this mainly because of only having to use 1 motor and the fact we have 4 2"wide wheels in contact with the ground.
if i link all the modules together i lose the ability to turn the frame itself yes i could do two and two but the drive systems been designed to handle 1 cim per 4"diameter wheel.
the dewalt gives us 3,7,12 fps speeds

Re: pic: 1625swervecad
 

No you don't, you will still be able to turn it like an ordinary skid steering drive base if programmed correctly (and the wheels in the right orientation).

Re: pic: 1625swervecad
 

if you mechanically link all 4 of the modules you lose the ability to turn now if you do two sets of two connected then you can turn skid steer style.
and one thing i've done is all of the modules rotation are solidly linked. so the wheels always point the same direction.

Re: pic: 1625swervecad
 

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Re: pic: 1625swervecad
 

We built a swerve frame, with all of the modules linked, and were still able to skid steer. Each side of the drive train is one it's drive system, and all were connected to the same steering system.

Re: pic: 1625swervecad
 

sorry when i said link them all together i mean that if you mechanically link the power to the wheel(all 4 cims) you then lose the ability to skid steer the bot
what i am doing is mechanically linking the rotation of the module. so i'll still have the ability to skid steer.

Re: pic: 1625swervecad
 

So... you were all saying the same thing then...

Link the rotation of the modules to one motor, but each module or pair of modules will have its own power so skid steer will still be an option.