pic: Micro Swerve Module Drive Train

[Mk.32]

Everytime I see a new swerve drive design on CD I just wanna build one even more so...


One of these days...

[yash101]

Yep. They are quite complicated, but pay off in the end, especially if you can get them light enough. By the way, Great design.

Now, for me:
Design and build a swerve drive vex robot to take to competitions! I'd like to see how that would work out

[Madison]

I think it'd be helpful to see an exploded view of one of the modules so that it's clearer how they're designed and assembled. Any chance of that happening?

[Andrew Remmers]

Originally Posted by Madison

I think it'd be helpful to see an exploded view of one of the modules so that it's clearer how they're designed and assembled. Any chance of that happening?

I can work on one yes, no guarantees on the time it'll take to get to it though.

Design and build a swerve drive vex robot to take to competitions! I'd like to see how that would work out

Who's to say I haven't already done so?

No, no, in actuality The amount of motor resources I'd like to dedicate to drive is far from optimal so as far as the rules remain the way they are I will not be building a swerve in VEX.

[yash101]

Ya. That would indeed be a bad idea, especially after I just finished a holonomic chassis that requires 4 motor ports, not 8. Also, there is a motor quota of ten, so that would be 4/5ths of my quota!

I'd like to keep some outputs for my cool scanning distance sensor and it's moving mount!

[BurkeHalderman]

This is awesome, I think smaller 2.5-3.5" wheels are going to start being more "common" for FRC use. I agree an exploded view would really help to understand what all is going on in there.

Also what program did you use to make this render? It's beautiful!

[runneals]

Originally Posted by Mk.32

Everytime I see a new swerve drive design on CD I just wanna build one even more so...


One of these days...

Swerve is cool, but you have to have a need for it to make it worth while... We did it our first year before I got on our team, and our drive team didn't use it to it's full potential.

Look at all your options for drive trains and pick the one that fits your needs, not the one that just looks cool or the one with the awesome bells & whistles.

[smartkid]

Cody here (the guy who rendered this).

I made the VRC animations Clean Sweep and Round Up.

This render was made with 3ds max 2014 using the mental ray renderer. It utilized three of my four rendernodes which each pack 2x Intel Xeon i7 E5540's + my 4.3 GHz (OC) i7 2700k workstation. Even with all that power this render took a very long time to complete (I ran it overnight).

This isn't surprising, it's a 4k high quality render with DOF and a large trace depth. Believe it or not I've had worse renders. This render of the Toss Up field featured segmented shadows, caustics and volumetric lighting - even @ 1080p it took the entire farm over a day to render.

Andrew's work has always been amazing, rendering it has always been fun.

Regarding the PNG, that is the raw file 3ds generated. It's so big because it's a 16-bit image not an 8-bit like traditional graphics (IE 16 bits per color channel not 8). My 10-bit monitor can display some of this advanced color depth. I gave Andrew the whole image because why not? Fun fact, mental ray actual computes in a 32-bit color-depth.

But yeah a more web-optimized version could be made, PNG or JPEG - doesn't really matter, I like PNG better.

-Cody

[BBray_T1296]

If those red gears are made from plastic like I think they are, shouldn't you be worried about stripping them? they seem awfully thin...

[Andrew Remmers]

Originally Posted by BBray_T1296

If those red gears are made from plastic like I think they are, shouldn't you be worried about stripping them? they seem awfully thin...

They are made from AL, They are also a sensor gear for rotation of the pods