Mecanum Drive Killing Battery

[Polaris395]

I've used Mecs except 2009.

I would also look and see whether each axle is in alignment with the other ones in a TRI-dimensional environment. Remember that Mecs run on the idea of vectors and so when these vectors are off, the stress on the wheels will increase greatly. I also point out that if you are testing the rubber rollers (plastic less so) on carpet, the frictional force applied to the out-of-line wheels is exponential.

Also, try doing some stress-tests and full power cycles on your battery (don't hurt yourselves!). Batteries aren't built for a strenuous 4 weeks and then mild-no work for the other 48 weeks. (Ahh chemistry.)

If you use Mecs and you can't go to a machine shop, I highly recommend using the supplied chassis with little to no personal drilling. Vectors are fickle!

[pafwl]

We have used Andy Mark 8" Mecanum wheels, direct drive on Andy Mark Tough boxes in 2008, 2010, and we will use them again ths year. If you are killing your battery it is not the fault of the wheels. To sum it up they work great.

[Chris is me]

Originally Posted by DinerKid

It makes sense that driving 4 CIMs would kill the battery faster than two.

Yes, that could be true, but (except 2009) I've never seen a competitive robot with a 2 CIM drivetrain. 4 CIM drivetrains are perfectly capable of running for several (2-3) matches without killing your battery. There's almost no situation where I would say a 2 CIM drivetrain would be better than 4 CIM.

A mecanum drive is less likely to "kill your battery" than a traction drive, but even running a very high current single speed traction drive last year we would always make it through a match with 4 CIMs, 2 FPs, and a compressor running. Our batteries left quite low (maybe a second match was possible, probably not) but we made it just fine.