Alternative motors for drive train

[EricH]

Actually, yes.

Unfortunately, I've been around a while. So this one isn't going to be legal anytime soon...

Two Bosch drill motors, running through somewhat modified Bosch drill transmissions, one on each side of the robot. (Note: While we rarely had an issue, many teams did have issues.) 4WD, all powered. Hasn't been legal since 2004, due to the drill motors being replaced by a pair of CIMs in the 2005 and later allowed motor lists; CIMs had been included for at least a few years before then along with the drill motors.

You could also ask Billfred about driving using window motors.

[Grim Tuesday]

I know that 1218 last year used a hybrid RS775/CIM drivetrain so they could use their CIM elsewhere. It definitely degraded their pushing power and gave them a little trouble on the bridge.

[Anupam Goli]

3824 at Palmetto was powering a meccanum drive off 4 mini-cims in toughboxes. It was fast, but was on the short end of the stick when it came to defense.

[Ivan Malik]

2009 saw some interesting designs due to the field surface... It would be a good place to look. I cant recall any off the top of my head save for robostang's crab that turned the wheel pods using servos.

[Andrew Schreiber]

2337 attempted to use FP motors in their drive. It didn't end too well as I recall.

[theawesome1730]

In 2007 118 used a "v6" transmission for their swerve drive Video while they did use 4 CIMs, they had two smaller motors supplementing them (I'm not sure what kind).

[MichaelBick]

This year we're running a 4 CIMs and 2 550s on our drive. It gave us quite a bit of pushing power to push around almost all of the teams at the Israel and LA regionals.

[Mark Sheridan]

Originally Posted by theawesome1730

In 2007 118 used a "v6" transmission for their swerve drive Video while they did use 4 CIMs, they had two smaller motors supplementing them (I'm not sure what kind).

They were the fisher price motors.

[EricH]

Originally Posted by Mark Sheridan

They were the fisher price motors.

Yep.

In 2006, 968 ran 2 CIMs and 1 FP in each drive transmission (or was it 1 and 1? I forget.). Anyways, I recall that they got quite a bit of practice in changing FPs out of the trannies due to frying. Something about FPs (and most of the KOP non-CIM motors) not exactly handling stalling very well.

I've used 4x RS775 motors in a drive, but there was almost no pushing involved, and weight was a very definite factor (as in, lower the weight for better points). This was not an FRC robot, BTW.

[Donut]

Originally Posted by Ivan Malik

2009 saw some interesting designs due to the field surface... It would be a good place to look.

This. I know on 498 that year we used 1 Banebots motor and transmission per side for our drive (I think RS550s). Never had any problems but I wouldn't do it for any "normal" FRC game. We also had to be careful to not drive the robot on carpet ever as a result.

[waialua359]

With the recent flexibility in the use, number, and types of motors, I cant see why anyone would use anything other than CIMs in their drivetrains as their main source of power..........other than weight issues.
In 2010, we had a pretty tough drivetrain that allowed us to play striker in all of our tournaments. Oddly enough, we used only a 1 CIM/1 FP (AM planetary gearbox) drive on each side to push robots around. We did it to shave off weight during crunch time of build season.
That year we had I believe a 47 match win (non-loss) streak including the ties.

[BigJ]

As John mentioned, we have mini-cims for our drive this year. I believe this was done primarily for weight issues, as our design is a corner climber-dumper. We are using custom 1-speed gearboxes.

I'm a software guy so to me it's all -1.0 to 1.0, but I'll see if I can get someone who worked on it to talk about ratios and such.

[XaulZan11]

Originally Posted by Wing

3824 at Palmetto was powering a meccanum drive off 4 mini-cims in toughboxes. It was fast, but was on the short end of the stick when it came to defense.

1675 also used 4 mini-cims for their meccanum drive. I'm not sure their specific set up, but I was actually impressed with their pushing/defense (for a mecanum drive that is )

[Andy A.]

Two 3/8ths drill motors, geared for a blazing 8 feet per second. Then again, 8fps was pretty fast when no one had heard of bumpers yet.

It's really impressive how far FIRST drive trains have come.