Teams With Mecanum Wheels

[Veselin Kolev]

Originally Posted by ahecht

Keep in mind that with cylindrical rollers, your robot will not drive smoothly. Basically, if you view your wheel edge on (so that the axle would appear to be a disc), you want the rollers to make a single circle.

I would encourage all teams to try making mechanum wheels, but keep in mind that the rollers, not the hubs, are the hard part.

The design I have in mind uses a 5" outer diameter wheel with 1" rollers, each a half inch wide. If you look at the outline, the edges are only about .003" taller than the middle of the roller, so I dont think that will account to much. I use smaller rollers, but more of them. Think about it, if you used an infinite amount of rollers, all infinitely thin cylinders, you would have a perfectly round wheel. Only I am kindof just using 12 instead of infinity. But hey, that .003" says its close enough.