How many CIMs in your drivetrain?

[dellagd]

Originally Posted by GeeTwo

I've read about people considering 4 CIM + 4 min-CIM designs for Mecanum and 4-wheel Killough, but was unable to find any examples that had been built and played.

Here you go

That year we ran 4 CIMs + 4 Mini-CIMs in our shifting 8in Mecanum Drivetrain. Looking back, mecanum probably wasn't the best choice that year with the heavy defense (), but we sure tried our hardest to make it work. For the most part it did, and we were able to handle many defensive situations with the great traction of the extremely wide wheels, but the cons far outweighed the benefit.

With 8 CIM-motors, we had the potential to run 320 Amps of current into our drivetrain before any of the individual 40A breakers would trip. Even operating well below that, there was incredible risk for popping the main breaker, not to mention browning out components, both of which happened in matches on multiple occasions. In high gear, any defensive situation was almost always a brown-out and radio reboot on the field. In low gear, we had maybe 10 seconds before a brown-out. With the current sensing capabilities of the new PDP, careful software could allow a team to more safely run this kind of setup, but back then, it was far more risk than the team could effectively manage or I would ever recommend.