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Re: Effectiveness of Casters
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Originally Posted by Al Skierkiewicz
Although we have used casters in the past, we have decided that for most applications, a caster design will be considered last. If you are moving in one direction and want to reverse, the casters have a mind of their own as to which way to turn and rarely will they allow you to back up in a straight line. For last year's competition we had four wheel crab but did find it neccesary to turn the robot at times. For this we had a pnuematic cylinder drop a "foot" to lift two wheels off the ground. This allowed a change in attitude and moved the center of turn to one side of the robot. It is tricky for drivers to learn but with practice it was very effective.
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Let me add to that. We had casters in 1999 when we had 2-wheel crab. It was terribly hard to drive straight when the casters were trailing. We will NEVER use casters again. Omni-wheels are much more stable!
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Warning: this reply is just an approximation of what I meant to convey - engineers cannot possibly use just written words to express what they are thinking.
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