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Originally Posted by tindleroot
I have done some research into swerves (but not too much), and this design looks pretty nice. The only criticism I have to offer is that it looks really heavy. The lightest swerve modules that I've seen have minimal framework around the wheel, and that module just looks huge and heavy.
A swerve drive is an inherently heavy system to put on a robot, and if you plan to use these on a robot in upcoming seasons then you will want to reduce as much as possible. I recommend checking out the swerves of 1640 and 16, as these are the lightest drives that I know of.
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According to solidworks (of which I've found to usually be a little light) the shell of this module is 1.3lbs. At the moment weight isn't a huge concern. This will be the type of project that would need to be iterated to find what works best for our purposes.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Andrew Lawrence
This seems like a lot more works than it's worth. Also, why so tall?
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The main reason behind the design/amount of work to machine this is because many of us on the team are excited about this new 4th axis. I have been wanting try swerve for a while now and this was the perfect opportunity to try out both things. As for the height, it was an arbitrary dimension I used and can easily (probably will) be changed soon. Shortening it should also help in reducing some weight.