Gearing for a Very High Speed

[JorgeReyes]

I am wondering if this would be a good idea. To have a robot that is 2 speed and 6cims. Low for around 7 fps and high would be 18-20 fps. The High might sound uncontrollable but what I was thinking is that we could use a button so that when it is pressed, the motors use 100% power but when it isnt it uses 50%. This would essentially give us 4 speeds with a 2 speed gearbox.

[Joe G.]

20fps isn't unheard of, but it typically takes some fancy non-linear response and/or closed loop control with encoders to make it controllable for the drivers.

[Jay O'Donnell]

I'm not sure how reducing the motor power to 50% is really helping you. If a high speed isn't controllable, why not just change the gearing so that is at a more reasonable speed? If you reduce the motor power by 50% then you'll barely be going faster than your low gear and you'll have half the torque that the low gear has.

[Pratik Kunapuli]

During the 2014 season, our robot had a 6 cim, 2 speed drivetrain with a low gear ~4 fps and high gear ~17 fps. The only real times we used high gear was if we needed to travel the length of the field very quickly, or to maneuver around defenders and not push through them. Realistically, your driver will learn to control the high speed and will learn when to shift into high gear. Its mostly a "feel" thing and if your robot needs to go 20 fps, then he will learn to drive it well.

[waialua359]

Originally Posted by Pratik341

During the 2014 season, our robot had a 6 cim, 2 speed drivetrain with a low gear ~4 fps and high gear ~17 fps. The only real times we used high gear was if we needed to travel the length of the field very quickly, or to maneuver around defenders and not push through them. Realistically, your driver will learn to control the high speed and will learn when to shift into high gear. Its mostly a "feel" thing and if your robot needs to go 20 fps, then he will learn to drive it well.

You guys spent most of the time driving 4 fps?

[T^2]

We spent most of our 2014 season in high gear with 6 CIMs (geared to 23ft/s, ran at 17ft/s in practice). The acceleration we got was pretty great, and our driver could control it with practice. We played midfield exclusively, however, so we ran back and forth across the field a lot.

Having your motors throttled to 50% power most of the time seems completely useless. In low gear, you lose the pushing advantage of being in low gear, and in high gear, you lose the torque advantage of using 6 CIMs. I'm not sure how this would ever be useful in practice. It is pretty easy to test, though, so feel free to do that.

[notmattlythgoe]

Originally Posted by waialua359

You guys spent most of the time driving 4 fps?

This is the same reaction I had. This can't be the whole story.

Our drive spent about 95% of his time in high gear and we were geared for about 17fps.

[DampRobot]

Originally Posted by JorgeReyes

I am wondering if this would be a good idea. To have a robot that is 2 speed and 6cims. Low for around 7 fps and high would be 18-20 fps. The High might sound uncontrollable but what I was thinking is that we could use a button so that when it is pressed, the motors use 100% power but when it isnt it uses 50%. This would essentially give us 4 speeds with a 2 speed gearbox.

We had adjusted speeds in this range this year, with 2 CIMs and a mini on each side. It was ferocious when accelerating, but ended up tripping the breaker a lot. When we took out the mini CIMs, it wasn't nearly as high performance (to my eye).

With a reasonable talented driver, a good control system, and a bit of practice, you won't need to limit power at all. We used split arcade (faux Chezy Drive), and noticed that the robot was much, much easier to control than with tank. When people think fast drives are uncontrollable, it's usually more a testament to what control system they're using rather than how fast they're going.

[JorgeReyes]

Well here was where I was going with it. If we gear it to 20 fps with 3 cims, then when the robot starts moving the motors could use full power but then since we use thrustmaster joysticks, we could control the power and maybe set it to say 75% after it accelerates by releasing a button so that you get a controllable speed but still get the acceleration. The Low Speed would be full power.

We kind of did this this year with our mecanums. We pressed a button( we called it the turbo button) for full power but then released it so we could go a bit slower when there were obstacles close by.

Edit: Also with our joystick it is a lot easier to control than using logitech controllers and I drove this year so I am pretty confident I should be able to control the robot at these speeds with practice

[T^2]

Originally Posted by JorgeReyes

Well here was where I was going with it. If we gear it to 20 fps with 3 cims, then when the robot starts moving the motors could use full power but then since we use thrustmaster joysticks, we could control the power and maybe set it to say 75% after it accelerates by releasing a button so that you get a controllable speed but still get the acceleration. The Low Speed would be full power.

We kind of did this this year with our mecanums. We pressed a button( we called it the turbo button) for full power but then released it so we could go a bit slower when there were obstacles close by.

Edit: Also with our joystick it is a lot easier to control than using logitech controllers and I drove this year so I am pretty confident I should be able to control the robot at these speeds with practice

If you're using joysticks, why not just ease up on them? That way your driver will get an infinite degree of control between 0% and 100% power.

[JorgeReyes]

I guess so. I think we are just going to do a lot of testing this summer with different gear ratios and control set ups.

[John]

Originally Posted by Pratik341

During the 2014 season, our robot had a 6 cim, 2 speed drivetrain with a low gear ~4 fps and high gear ~17 fps. The only real times we used high gear was if we needed to travel the length of the field very quickly, or to maneuver around defenders and not push through them. Realistically, your driver will learn to control the high speed and will learn when to shift into high gear. Its mostly a "feel" thing and if your robot needs to go 20 fps, then he will learn to drive it well.

This is similar to what we did: we stayed in low gear (~8-9 fps) for the majority of the match, mostly using high gear (~19 fps) to make full field runs. Many teams greatly overestimate how much time is spent traversing the field (suitable for high speed), and underestimate how much time is spent lining up passes and shots (suitable for low speed). ~4 fps seems really slow, even to me though. What shifter did you guys use that has a 4.25:1 spread?

A really fast high gear is sometimes just what you need, though. For example, in Galileo Match 100 (no video) our alliance partner missed a would-be match winning shot with less than 20 seconds left, and the ball bounced all the way back to our defensive zone. We were able to race back, get the ball, and score it just before time expired.

Some years full field runs happen all the time (2013, 2011 come to mind), others they almost never happen (2012). Whether the ability to save a couple of seconds on each run is worth it depends a lot on your team and the year. It's worth maybe one more cycle, but only if your team can score effectively and quickly.

The High might sound uncontrollable but what I was thinking is that we could use a button so that when it is pressed, the motors use 100% power but when it isnt it uses 50%. This would essentially give us 4 speeds with a 2 speed gearbox.

I question why you want to have a secondary "software shifter" when you are planning to have a real shifter on your robot. Why not just use low gear when you want to go slow? In our experience (if I have time I might add the math to back it up) it should give superior acceleration, control, and power consumption. The only drawback I can think of is shifting time, but the COTS shifter options are so good now its not really a big deal.

[JorgeReyes]

I guess the question I have then is if it is better to automate shifting to shift into low gear when we are drawing too much current and high when we are not, or have the driver shift manually.

[notmattlythgoe]

Originally Posted by JorgeReyes

I guess the question I have then is if it is better to automate shifting to shift into low gear when we are drawing too much current and high when we are not, or have the driver shift manually.

We plan on monitoring the current draw and shifting down when we sense that we are in a pushing match. Otherwise we will stay in high gear.

[JorgeReyes]

Originally Posted by notmattlythgoe

We plan on monitoring the current draw and shifting down when we sense that we are in a pushing match. Otherwise we will stay in high gear.

See but the problem I see with this set up is when you want to do something precise like lining up to shoot. If you try to do this on high gear it will be harder to do this. What I was thinking was that it shifts down when it draws to much current to automatically shift in pushing matches like you said.

But also have a manual override option to shift when necessary like the situation I mentioned.