Best Drive Train

[Mykey]

Obviously there is no "Best" drive train. There is only best for you.

We went with what we dubbed the "Chicken Drive". It is a 6wd tank drive with super shifters. What made it distinctive was redundant chains. We actually busted a drive chain in Newton qualifiers but kept running. Using pneumatic shifters was also very useful. We saw people at regionals trying to shift with servos and that meant they had to basically come to a full stop to do so.

[Rangel]

Definitely not the best drivetrain but a very very good one is this year's KOP Belt Drivetrain. We decided to go with it this year to spend more time on our different mechanisms. It took roughly 2-3 hours to put together and after we assembled it we never had to worry about it again. The built in belt tensioners worked great and once tightened we never had any problems with the drivetrain itself. Being able to not worry about the drivetrain at competition was a luxury we never had before. I would also like to point out just how robust it was. We could go head to head with some of the best drivetrains in frc. Fast, enough traction to not get pushed around, and very robust. Thank you Andymark!

[Clem1640]

We are big fans of swerve as a drive-train well suited to a wide variety of FRC situations. The ability to vector drive force in any desired direction is particularly valuable. So is the independence between chassis orientation and direction of movement. Some moves are shown in the attached link:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pej5pkFvFdY

Swerve does "cost" more. We use 4 drive and 4 steering motors and the overall weight of four pivot modules is 31.6 lb (includes all motors). Also, there is a significant investment in driver training. Despite this cost, we find that the benefits that this versitile drive-train provides to us in competition makes it worthwhile.

[Jared Russell]

Given infinite time, money, motor selection, programming ability, manufacturing ability, and driver practice time...swerve.

The more of those assumptions you relax, the more attractive plain old tank drive starts looking.

[cadandcookies]

I would say the best drive train is this:

http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/sh...shed%2C+around

I mean, look at that-- robust, light, simple...

[42!]

Don't forget about the fact it can travel over 100 fp/s