Hello.
As you probably know, swerve drive is cool. I've been fascinated with it ever since I discovered other teams using it (namely 1640 at MAR), and took it upon myself to try to create some CAD files for our team. We've recently been discussing using 6 CIMs on the drivetrain; as an added challenge, I wanted to see how I could use all 6 in a swerve drive. My answer was to use 2 cims on each of 3 swerve modules, instead of using 1 cim on each of 4 and having 2 left over. However, rectangles don't sit/balance very well on triangles; thus, I decided that a hexagonal chassis would be better as well. Here's my current (basic) progress. The gear ratios aren't correct, but I've placed gears everywhere necessary and the appropriate sizes can be determined and bought.
It is a coaxial design; the sprocket at the top of the drive shaft above the wheel is attached to the drive shaft, while the sprocket below that is bolted directly to the pivot case and is attached to the pivot module. Between this lower gear and the plate which has the toughbox and P60 gearboxes attached (the lower of the 2 large horizontal plates) resides a thrust bearing which is inserted into the sprocket attached to the top of the pivot module.
Please let me know if you have any questions/comments/concerns about the design, attached concepts, or anything else. I'd like to know what I should improve on this design, and (perhaps more importantly) if it will work. I do know that I need to add some bolts between the top and the bottom horizontal plates, add some more support horizontally between the two vertical supports for the wheels, make an actual mounting system (which will probably just be bolts through the bellypan of the chassis in this sort of setup), and then I need to swiss cheese everything. I also need to put in the shafts of proper lengths and add keys/retaining rings where necessary. However, I'm sure there are things that I'm forgetting; if you find anything, please let me know.
Also, I would actually appreciate some assistance figuring out the gear ratio needed from the RS550 motor we will be using; I have no idea how to figure out the torque required to turn the wheel under load. I also need to correctly gear the cim motors, but that shouldn't be too much of an issue.
Thanks,
Hades
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HexBot:
