pic: High Traction Drivetrain Concept

[carpedav000]

Originally Posted by cbale2000

On an 8wd robot where the center wheels are lower than the outer ones, the robot simply tilts back onto the rear wheels and maintains traction, but for a no-drop drive system, this effect will result in all of the robot weight being shifted on to you rear wheels, which in this case, have the lowest friction. All other things being equal, this design will likely not stand up in a pushing match with the majority of drop-center 8+ wheel robots, IMO.

It seems like this issue could be easily remedied by mounting your drive motors/gearboxes (and battery if you have room) to the front of the robot to make it less resistant to shifting onto the back wheels. You could also build a suspension system into the wheels so that when the frame tilts, all the wheels stay on the ground (some might say that this would be too heavy, but you can make suspension systems fairly light ).