Quote:
Originally Posted by alicen
Whenever we did mecanums, we always had suspension on each wheel so that all wheels were always in contact with the floor. They even went over the humps in Breakaway just fine!
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We did mecanums for logo motion with a flat-floor and they worked fine, but for rebound rumble, trying to climb the 'bridge' in the middle they were really problematic, even with suspension.
Remember that with mecanums, the left wheel is always pushing against the right wheel to make it go straight. So if one wheel gets off of the ground, your robot turns by itself.
Methinks that with a stack of totes on a forklift, the back-two wheels will be bumping off the ground regularly, and if you try to cross a platform at any kind of angle other than 90, you'll lift a wheel.
Last year I saw four wheel mecanums in the IAM14U frame, and maybe more often in 'butterfly' and 'octanum' drives. That that was acompletely flat floor. My recommendation is that if your heart is set on mecanums, use a butterfly or octo so you can put regular wheels on the floor when you need to. Also, note, the new frames are much more stiff than the old channel sections ones, so you'll need to do Something to keep those wheels on the ground. Something like independent suspension.
Mecanums work really well with Banebot transmissions too.
Last thing. Mecanums running over a noodle a problem? I think so . You tell me?