Engineering Project on Mecanum Wheels-Please help me gather input

[dude__hi]

We have a chop saw, fixed rpm drill press and a stationary grinder. The rest is power tools.

I've been trying to come up with a way to make simple mecanum wheels, it still needs some work.




The access to the CNC machinery needed to manufacture them.

[BVespone]

That is a cool idea. What is the reason behind the smaller roller size? I can see it if you wanted to make the overall wheel thickness less, but it seems like it would be difficult to make such small rollers.

[dude__hi]

Originally Posted by BVespone

That is a cool idea. What is the reason behind the smaller roller size? I can see it if you wanted to make the overall wheel thickness less, but it seems like it would be difficult to make such small rollers.

I should have posted the actual sizes of the wheel. It's 8 inches from top of the roller at the top to the bottom of the roller on the bottom. The rollers are .42in thick. From end face to end face the wheel is 1 inch long.

As for the angled edges I was thinking just make a tool jig like a pencil sharpener.

[Burmeister #279]

being that we're are an engineering school we have a lot of equipment.

1. 16 Manual Mills,
2. 8 Manual Lathe,
3. 4 Vertical and Horizontal band saws,
4. tube bending equipment,
5. welding equipment,
6. 2' x 2' x 2' work area CNC mill
7. a small CNC lathe
8. Multiple multi-purpose sanders.
9. A roughly 12" by 12" by 18" work area rapid-prototyping machine
   and there's equipment we use at our sponsor's:
10. a rapid prototyping machine that is roughly 3 times that size at Dana
11. roughly 6' x 6' x 3' work area CNC mill at Dana

Most of the equipment gets used. We've never done any drive system that wasn't Tank but we have machined some interesting wheels (2004). I'm hoping i can get the team to work on a project over the summer to do this but i haven't gotten that started yet. I know that mecanum has less power than a 6-wheel drop center (west coast i think) but it is still a cool design. and for us, having a cool design will increase interest and overall help our team in the future. wish us luck =)

[Hawiian Cadder]

We have all of those tools as well as a CnC mill, however it is really only a 2 axis with 36 inches of x, 10 of y, and 8 of z, so it is not large enough to make large wheels. we also have access to a sheet metal bender which works with 1/8 t6061 aluminum reasonably well.

i attempted to make machanum wheels in the off season prior to this year, the hardest thing was the bend, and making it accurate, as well as not crooked.

i think that the best way to do it would be to make a hub with slots for the desired number of rollers, and then make arms to hold the rolers.

[BVespone]

Thanks for the ideas everyone. I will post the results when the project is finished.

If anyone else would like to add any additional comments please feel free, the more research I have the better.

[Siri]

1640 has access to 2 drill presses, 2 vertical band saws and a horizontal, a miter saw, a lathe, and MIG welder. We also have a sponsor who can do off-site milling. We've never created our own mecanum wheels, though we investigate it occasionally. If I'm still supposed to answer #3, seems to me it's (robustly) securing the rollers in the correct orientation.