Drivetrain Basics

[Ether]

Originally Posted by AustinSchuh

Which is 6.14 foot lbs.

small correction: 6.14 inch pounds

[dtengineering]

With a single speed gearbox, speed and accelleration are trade offs.

As you increase your pushing force, you can speed up faster, stop faster, and turn faster. But your maximum speed drops.

In this year's game we sacrificed top speed for accelleration and pushing force, due to the fact that it was pretty apparent that there would almost never be a time when a robot would get up to full speed due to the congestion on the floor.

We got the 14:1 upgrade kit for our Toughboxes, and... wow... that had to be our best performing drivetrain EVER. (2CIMs per side, through 14:1 toughbox, direct to 6"x1.5" IFI traction wheels with roughtop).

I think I'd go with the slower, quicker robot again, even in an open field competition. Robots tend to spend more time maneuvering than driving in a long straight line.

It will change from game to game, of course... but what good is a theoretical top speed that you never reach?

Jason

[gorrilla]

Originally Posted by dtengineering

With a single speed gearbox, speed and accelleration are trade offs.

As you increase your pushing force, you can speed up faster, stop faster, and turn faster. But your maximum speed drops.

We got the 14:1 upgrade kit for our Toughboxes, and... wow... that had to be our best performing drivetrain EVER. (2CIMs per side, through 14:1 toughbox, direct to 6"x1.5" IFI traction wheels with roughtop).

I think I'd go with the slower, quicker robot again, even in an open field competition. Robots tend to spend more time maneuvering than driving in a long straight line.

It will change from game to game, of course... but what good is a theoretical top speed that you never reach?

Jason

We chose to make our robot so small this year we ended up with both.
At 106lbs with 4 cims and 2 toughboxes chained to 6 plaction and 4 2008 kit wheels it maxed out around 13fps and accelerated to full speed in roughly 15 feet. As a bonus we could push pretty well too

It sure was a shock to all of us how our drivetrain performed this year, I will say it's the best one we have ever made.