Question about worm gears

[Al Skierkiewicz]

Most teams shy away from worm gears in the drive train since they rely so heavily on mechanical alignment. Without the strong bearings and mounts needed for this application the gears tend to climb on each other under heavy loads which just increase the loads on the bearings and drives the efficiency down. Generally, the support structure for the bearings becomes unwieldy in these drive systems. Worm gears work well in other applications and for those that need backdrive compensation. Arms and manipulators are both good applications.
The Globe motors are great fro steering, they high torque and good control at low speeds needed for steering. We have used them for all of our crab drive systems.

[AndyB]

I am a former member of 269, and yes, we have done "sworm" drive. Even though its really cool, and nice and quiet, I really can't recommend it over more traditional swerve concepts. (As traditional as swerve drives can be at least)

Efficiency is obviously a major factor, but another thing to take into account is how the whole thing fits together on the robot. With a worm reduction, it is impossible to center a motor ontop of the turning radius (unless your wheels are offset from the turning radius, like a caster, which is not recommended). Our sworm drive turns only 180 degrees, which also makes programming a little tricky. Again, I don't know if I'd recommend that method either.

If you could come up with a design that had 360 degree rotation, using worm gears, I don't know if it would be any more advantageous than just mounting the motor sideways ala 111 or 71.