Mecanum. What's Best

[Katie_UPS]

From our experience with mecanum:
-Make sure all wheels are touching the ground: Aside from wheel orientation (diamond vs. X), its been our biggest problem with mecanum. Make sure your frame doesn't warp or use a "suspension" chassis (we did this with pods and springs).
-Use 8 inch mecanum wheels: The 6 inch ones (back in '08) pinched the rollers. I've heard that the 6" wheels have been improved, but we switched back to 8" since.
-Don't pinch the rollers: Otherwise the wheels WILL NOT WORK (I think most people know that, though).
-As said, orientation (diamond vs X)

All of our mecanums that I can remember have been chain driven so I'm not sure the difference it makes (asides from the general pros/cons of chain vs direct driven).

We've found mecanum to be good for manuverability and its pretty easy to get used to when you drive (we drive with two joy sticks-one for back/forth/left/right, and another for orbiting/point turns). We also think it makes for great demos (people get a kick out of robots driving sideways).

They do, however, get pushed around fairly easy, and messing up wheel orientation is a pain. Also, if your frame warps or rollers get pinched, it doesn't play nice at all.