Mecanum Wheels

[EricH]

Originally Posted by thefro526

I 3D printed a set of Mecanum wheels back in '07/'08 and there's no way they'd stand up to the abuse of an FRC robot.

Oh? Really?

330 3D printed a set around the 2005 season through one of our sponsors at the time--as a matter of fact, every mecanum 330's played with to my knowledge has been 3D printed. The VEX-scale ones (which were metal) had some problems with fins bending before the roller pins were installed. The resin one had problems with cracking (and staying together--it had a 2-piece hub).

The pure nylon ones held up pretty darn well in our testing. They'd take a full season, I'm certain of it--they took everything we threw at them in testing with zero issues (other than a lack of traction, resulting in some cool tricks we tried with the rollers). 8 rollers, outer rims like the AM ones, not inner ones like 357's, one-piece hub, steel roller shafts (screw-threaded on one end to act like a custom screw, and sprocket attachment points on one side. Sorry, I don't have any pictures--maybe some of the other members of 330 at the time have some, or can get them.

Were the wheels used in competition? No. We considered that a 6WD better fit our objectives that year--and for every year since. As such, to this day, 330 has not used mecanums in competition. They're there, though--waiting to be used if the game calls for them.