pic: We got bored :)

[Chris is me]

Heard a little about this, pretty much the neatest little swerve that you ever did see... Looks neat to say the least. Smaller than a kit wheel this year.

[BrendanB]

How much does that little thing weigh?

[Dillon Carey]

here's a picture of the other side:

Originally Posted by BrendanB

How much does that little thing weigh?

It weighs about 1lb 5oz.

the Height from the turning sprocket to the bottom of the wheel is about 3 3/8"
(the wheel is 1 5/8" diameter, 1.625 )

[EricH]

What motor does it use to drive?

[Dillon Carey]

Originally Posted by EricH

What motor does it use to drive?

whatever motor you wanted to connect to the vertical axle, i would guess a cim in most cases.

[NorviewsVeteran]

If you want a digital camera to focus that close, set it to macro (the little flower icon).

Neat design in the sides there

[Big Kid]

extremely neat, I remember our prototype swerve module (never made it to the robot) was like 5x heavier and bulkier, i like the design too really neat

[Dillon Carey]

Originally Posted by NorviewsVeteran

If you want a digital camera to focus that close, set it to macro (the little flower icon).

thanks for the tip

[daltore]

Any pictures of the innards? Sweet design, I'd love to see that on an FTC robot (if they would allow it along with all the other parts needed).

[Dillon Carey]

If there aren't limitations on the wheels there shouldn't be any reason not to put this on an frc bot.

[GarrettF2395]

Wow!
I'm always really impressed by your teams quality of components!

Two questions for you:
1) From the beginning of the design process, to having a finished product,
how long did it take your team to complete this project? (Just wondering)

2) Do you have an idea of how much load this little guy can take?

[Dillon Carey]

Originally Posted by GarrettF2395

1) From the beginning of the design process, to having a finished product,
how long did it take your team to complete this project? (Just wondering)

Its the off-season so we have been taking it nice and easy, we have probably been working on it for over a month, if you take out design and it probably took 3 days.

In a build season environment we could probably have 4-6 of these done in 3-4 days (give or take a few depending on when the waterjet is open and when we can get the hex put in the bevel gears and axles made).

Originally Posted by GarrettF2395

2) Do you have an idea of how much load this little guy can take?

The wheels would be the weakest point, in my opinion, since everything else is .25" plate and .5" hex.

http://banebots.com/pc/WHB-WS-174/T40P-174BO-HS4 is where we got the wheels, but i can't find a number for how much they can hold, although I'm pretty sure that having 3 wheels per module and having 3-4 modules on a robot that the wheels would be fine.

[Jared Russell]

The only caveat of such small wheels is ground clearance. If next year's game requires climbing a ramp or other obstacle, big wheels become valuable.

[Greg Needel]

I love this. The FIRST community never ceases to amaze me with their ideas which I probably would never have thought of, this idea is one of them. I can totally picture this on an FRC robot, tucked away inside a 3x3 or 4x4 frame rail. It could be an almost "hidden" drive train as it would take up a very small amount of real estate.

As for the wheels, I have heard mixed reviews about the banebot wheels. Just like any traction devices harder wheels don't provide enough traction and the soft wheels wear too quickly. A unique opportunity you have with a 3 wheel design is a mixture of wheel durometer, while I am not sure you may be able to "tune" your traction using different combinations, the one that strikes me as obvious is high traction on the inside and harder wheels on the outside.

A couple of questions:

Any reason you didn't use gears or even #25 on the outside, I would suspect you could play with the geometry a bit and make gears work making assembly even easier.

Do you think you really need ball bearings in the modules? I think you could get away with oilite bronze bushings to keep the space and weight lower.

Did you think about drilling out the hex shafts to reduce weight? you could probably sink a 1/4 hole through your shafts and loose even more weight.

Overall I really like the idea, and don't be surprised if I borrow some of these ideas for a future robot.