popdown casters

[aaronbr28040]

Popdown casters are one of the best way to overcome the traction problems experienced when trying to turn doing skid steering. The easiest way to do a caster is to put it near the front of your robot with the center of mass preferably between your back two wheels to aid in turning although this is not neccessary. Casters take too long to turn and line up and continue allowing the robot to spin even after power is no longer applied. The best way to go is delrin, or teflon either in the stick or furniture slide variety. Be careful that your robot isnt going to be popping wheelies as ours is now .
-Aaron

[greencactus3]

Originally Posted by aaronbr28040

Be careful that your robot isnt going to be popping wheelies as ours is now .
-Aaron

oh no. we actually get air after hitting a piece of wood during a wheelie. VERY cool.. only makesure the landing area is clear of small balls. we kinda did a flip after we landed

on our design, we just wont be able to do it with just one caster. at the least we're going to need to use two. inlign for and back.
as in

.....................................
..............caster...............
.....................................
..............caster...............
.....................................
.....................................
drive........................drive
wheel......................wheel
.....................................

can't give out any more secrets...
but anyways, we might look into teflon or delrin.
but IS there a very easy way to make an omniwheel?
cheap and lightweight. it can be small. or actually, small is better.
we have a CNC mill, but its not exactly the fastest thing around.
will making one out of aluminum be too weak to support a robot?