Mecanum Wheel Considerations

[OWD]

Hello all, I've been talking with everyone on my team concerning a design that team 1322 had on their site (I'd like to thank them for posting it!). Concerning the mecanum wheel designs they have, one of their thoughts has a mecanum wheels on opposing corners (say, front left and rear right) with regular wheels for the other. I believe the purpose of the design is simply to help in turning, since the mecanum wheels would project a force closer to the direction they would want to turn in.

Will this design climb ramps? Will it require any other special programming? We won't be moving sideways, but the wheels are different. If their design is too complex, my team may drop the idea of powered mecanum, and use them passively as rear wheels.

Please help!

[ISGOI Howie]

Originally Posted by pfreivald

On control, keep in mind that if you make one 'strafe' and one 'turn' joystick, it will work very much like an Xbox controller...

...which begs the question: have you figured out how to get an Xbox controller interfaced and working with the new control system? (We have not, as of yet, but we certainly want to!)

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

We have figured out the Xbox controller!

We used a wired controller, and downloaded microsoft drivers.

The buttons are:

1: A
2: B
3: X
4: Y
5: Back
6: start
7: LB
8: RB
9: Left stick click (L3)
10: right stick click (R3)0

X and Y axis is the left stick
X and Y rotation is the right stick
Postive on Z is the right trigger, negative on the Z is the left trigger
D-Pad is the POV hat (ya we don't know why it says hat....)

[baruffir]

Originally Posted by EricH

They won't stand up to pushing. You'll have to avoid pushing, which that extra degree of freedom you get with a mecanum drive will hopefully allow you to do.

We used the mecanum wheels for Rack'n'Roll, Overdrive, and now for Breakaway. We hook them up to the BaneBots 12:1 ratio gearboxes, and can push everyone on the field around. We've never had an issue with pushing.

[Ether]

Originally Posted by abross

Hello. I have read a couple threads that talk about mecanum wheels, but I have a more specific question. My team is trying to decide whether we want tank drive, or to use mecanum wheels.

The two are not mutually exclusive.


~

[Chris is me]

Originally Posted by baruffir

We used the mecanum wheels for Rack'n'Roll, Overdrive, and now for Breakaway. We hook them up to the BaneBots 12:1 ratio gearboxes, and can push everyone on the field around. We've never had an issue with pushing.

Can you give video of this? I highly doubt wheels with 71% efficiency and a 0.7 CoF will "push everyone on the field around".

[baruffir]

Originally Posted by Chris is me

Can you give video of this? I highly doubt wheels with 71% efficiency and a 0.7 CoF will "push everyone on the field around".

Unfortunately, I don't actually have any videos. You can check us out on Blue Alliance though. There are plenty of matches from Rack'n'Roll where we get into pushing matches with other robots, and beat them.

Sorry that I don't have specifics, but I can say that it has never been a problem for us.