Wow I got a lot of questions!
First off thanks for the compliments and questions!
Sorry for the late responses I have been busy for the past 24 ish hours.
Anyways Below I have answered a large majority of the questions I believe, If I missed yours feel free to remind me! Also I have made a Google+ Album of what I had screen capped from my CAD, including some requests.
https://plus.google.com/u/0/photos/1...49989384789217
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These may be a stupid questions, but I can't seem to figure out what the orange housing around the wheel is. Is it 3D printed? Or will it be machined?
Also, what's acting as your thrust bearing?
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The Red/Orange Swerve Pod has a fun manufacturing procedure, I figured it could be machined with a very complex/expensive machine/run-time given the capabilities, but it also can be printed as well using DMS printers (easiest way in my opinion). The bearings that hold the modules in place are in two locations If you can see the white plastic, those actually house the pod inside it keeping it nice and stable. They would be made of Delrin most likely and would have to be assembled to be very concentric. Again this would be a highly experimental mechanism and its been something I want to prototype for a while. I also think it gives it a cool look, but that's just me.
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I like the form factor of this design, although I'm curious why you decided to optimize this design for height. I have recently CAD'd a swerve module that is optimized for width.
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I designed it this way as just a personal challenge, my last one was 6 inches tall and I really aimed to make this one reach 4 inches. 4 inches was absolute best case Everything worked, 5 inches was acceptable. I hit 4.6 and admittedly I could remove some more material if I wanted but I didn't to keep some integrity of the plastic.
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Is the wheel housing made of plastic?
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I think if I were to make one of these I would prototype it in plastic just for a desk piece, but all parts should be Aluminum, or for fun 3D printed Titanium. (not a cheap project to undertake) That being said I do hope to make an operational one eventually.
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Also I would be concerned with the linkage between the pneumatic cylinder and the shifting mechanism, you may get some racking.
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This was also a concern of mine as well, I could probably choose a micro-guided cylinder now that I think about it and get a better result for the shifting I might have to revisit this portion for another iteration.
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What miter gears are you using above the wheel?
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I don't remember, I think I actually used the Gear Creator in Inventor simply because I had accepted that the amount of custom parts for this project was through the roof already. And that it was really just a proof of concept.
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Do you have any CAD models?
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Of course I do!
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What software/setup was used for it?
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This was modeled in Autodesk Inventor 2013 On my home computer, and rendered by my friend Cody Smith. I haven't had time to make any renders and he likes seeing what his rig can actually do as he upgrades it. This was actually just a draft render, but we both have become so busy recently that we couldn't work further into making a final one. That and this module alone could cripple most rigs in terms of poly-counts
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so... how do you mount it?
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Album Link here, and in photo description shows more detail on how this system works.
https://plus.google.com/u/0/photos/1...49989384789217
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What is the actual ground clearance?
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Very, Very Small. .4375 inches from the bottom of the belly pan, to the bottom of the wheel. Mounting mounting can be seen in the various pictures in the Album, its an array of 8-32 bolts that would be bolt the entire thing to the frame, I also considered a motor support to counter act the load of the motors hanging off that far. As one could see the Actual CAD seems unfinished missing various electronic components. This is because I figured I would design those into whatever structure attached the drive train to the rest of the robot.
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I'm going to go out on a limb for everyone here and ask for a STEP file. I think a few screen shots would do justice but the actual file would not only help all of us understand what's going on but also help you with specific design revisions after comments are posted.
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I can probably get the CAD up eventually, I'd have to do some cleaning up/final gritty details to complete.
I think that's everything! Feel free to expand on what new information you have!