[ay2b]

Originally Posted by bacarpenter

I've been working on the mecanum drive programming, I got the wheels to spin in the correct direction and all the motor controllers are hooked up correctly, but every time I try to strafe on the ground instead of going horizontally it'll move diagonally or rotate. Has anyone else had this problem and know how to help?

Assuming the wheels really are all spinning correctly, it sounds to me like a weight and/or gearing issue. Is this a fully functional robot, or just a drive chassis? Can you take 50 lbs off, and see if it starts working correctly? Does it strafe correctly when you first put in a brand new battery and then quickly stop working? Any of these issues could indicate a weight balance problem, or that your gearing is too high (try regearing to something lower). My team had similar problems when we first tried mecanum on a fully loaded robot (it had worked fine when it was just the chassis, but when we added the rest of the robot, it stopped strafing except for about 10 seconds with a brand new battery -- we fixed it by adding another gear reduction).

Originally Posted by Alan Anderson

And recognize that if you don't use some form of closed-loop control, weight balance will become extremely important.

Even if you do have closed-loop control, weight balance is important.

--Andy