Four Wheel, all steering, non-omniwheel, ONE power/motor source drive

[ngreen]

Originally Posted by FizMan

Are you saying that:

3 motor gearbox + 3 motor gearbox +2xTransmission < 6 motor gearbox + 1xTransmission?

A central gearbox would indeed require chain and/or a shaft extending out to the other wheels, but I don't see that taking up that much extra weight. Besides; other drive systems would require the same thing to transfer the power out to the wheels.

And with the shifting, it's not just the pneumatics; it's the extra mounting, gearing, maybe another shaft. Plus if you can reduce the amount of pneumatics required to fire to shift; we might be able to ditch the need to include the air compressor.

When I compare something like this to a traditional tank drive system; I see the only extra weight coming in to support the one extra motor to turn all the wheels, and maybe the little bit more with the wheel mounts. And then the reversing gear; which would probably weight the same amount or less than the second transmission. Or perhaps better yet; maybe it can be implemented along with the transmission somehow...

I'm more comparing the xbox design which only utilize two motors and doesn't shift or have a reverse gear. It weighed 90 lbs. Yes I know the robot they show was a prototype and a lot of weight can be reduces out of the other materials. I thought there drivetrain in general was very nice in design. Four more motors and the gearing to join them, a multi-speed option, and a reverse gear would add weight on top of being centralized and being a swerve drive. I think a good design would be about equal to or maybe even a little less than using multiple gearboxes. I just don't see a large enough benefit for the complexities added in having both a centralized drive and centralized steering.