Quote:
Originally Posted by antoineft
I would say it mostly depends on your resources. Its easier to build a crab drive with a gearbox on each wheel pod, but it will also weigh more. If you have the machining capabilites and are up for the challenge  go with the bevel gears. |
It may be easier to do a gearbox per wheel pod. But we were able to pull off bevel gears.
How we machined the wheel pods
1. CAD like crazy
2. Cut all the plates out of 1/8" aluminum, with our 20-year-old wood CNC machine
3. Drill press some axle holes
4. Hand weld the plates together.
Bevel Gear Crab/Swerve
Pros:
Lightweight
Unlimited turning of the wheel pod
Few motors
Cons:
Harder to work with
Less power, however that was not an issue this year.
Gearbox per swerve module
Pros:
More power per wheel
Easier to work with
Cons:
Limited turning because of wiring.
Heavy
Uses up motors that could be used somewhere else
That is all I can think of right now, with limited experience with swerve/crab, I am sure that I forgot something