Chains for 6 wheel drive

[wilsonmw04]

here are are a few photos of our rookie year drive train. You might get a few ideas from this:

http://www.chiefdelphi.com/media/photos/27588

http://www.chiefdelphi.com/media/photos/27587

[TJ Cawley]

does this method of chains work well?
i've been prototyping chain drives and never though of 6-wheel power but it seems like a good design. do you use 3 chains per side? you could extend the drive chain so that it wrapped around the first two wheels, like on a caterpillar. that way you'd only be using two chains.

[wilsonmw04]

two chains were used. 1 drove two wheels and was powered by one CIM. The other chain drove the front wheel getting power from the middle.

[EricH]

330's setup has typically been 2 chains off the gearbox, one to rear, one to middle, and 1 chain from middle to front. Gearboxes were aft, which helped the robot settle on that side for slightly more stable driving. (6WD drop center)

[buildmaster5000]

Originally Posted by EricH

330's setup has typically been 2 chains off the gearbox, one to rear, one to middle, and 1 chain from middle to front. Gearboxes were aft, which helped the robot settle on that side for slightly more stable driving. (6WD drop center)

We used a similar setup this year. Two chains from the gearbox (to middle and rear wheels) and one chain from the middle to the front. Again, gearboxes were aft of center, but tensioning was a nightmare (we were using #35 chain).

[wilsonmw04]

Originally Posted by buildmaster5000

We used a similar setup this year. Two chains from the gearbox (to middle and rear wheels) and one chain from the middle to the front. Again, gearboxes were aft of center, but tensioning was a nightmare (we were using #35 chain).

Our set was way easy to tension. All we had to do was slide the motor shaft fore or aft to tension the back chain. The front chain was tensioned by sliding a small PVC pipe along the length of the chain and zip tying in place.

[Ether]

Originally Posted by wilsonmw04

Our set was way easy to tension. All we had to do was slide the motor shaft fore or aft to tension the back chain. The front chain was tensioned by sliding a small PVC pipe along the length of the chain and zip tying in place.

Have you been following the discussion in this thread? Static (ie non-rotating) tensioners are not receiving a favorable assessment over there.

[Chris is me]

It's a lot easier to use one chain per connection than it is to use a single chain for multiple wheels. So 2 chains off the box and one chain from a wheel to another wheel.

[billbo911]

Another alternative that I don't believe has been mentioned yet is:
Direct drive one set of wheels, then use chain to drive the sets.
For instance, direct drive the center set, then run a chain from center set to the front set and another from the center to the rear set. This can also be done by driving either the front or rear set of wheels and then chaining up the remaining sets. If you use #25 chain, this will also yield the lightest use of chain.
We have used this setup, as well as many other teams, with great success. The one caveat is to make certain your alignment and tensions are correct.

One not so obvious advantage to this design is that a single chain break will not cripple your drive train. In fact, multiple breaks might not either.

[s_forbes]

You can really route your chains just about any way that you want, provided you have enough chain wrap around each sprocket. Teams have had success with just about everything.

My favorite method so far is a using just a single chain to provide power to all the drive wheels on one side (example here). It makes for a nice simple system that's easy to work on, but if the wheel sprockets are slightly eccentric it can be a pain to tension correctly.

[wilsonmw04]

Originally Posted by billbo911

Another alternative that I don't believe has been mentioned yet is:
Direct drive one set of wheels, then use chain to drive the sets.

We used that same approach for Lunacy. it worked very well.

[Clem1640]

We did 6wd for Lunacy.

We drive the center wheels directly. Fronts and back wheels were driven by individual chains each slaved to the center wheel master. The center wheel, in addition to being directly driven, had dual sprockets. This worked well, kept chain lengths short, and limited the impact of losing a chain in a game (which never happened, anyway).



Spacers on the sprockets kept the chain runs straight.

[kinghashbrown]

Originally Posted by Clem1640

We did 6wd for Lunacy.

We drive the center wheels directly. Fronts and back wheels were driven by individual chains each slaved to the center wheel master. The center wheel, in addition to being directly driven, had dual sprockets. This worked well, kept chain lengths short, and limited the impact of losing a chain in a game (which never happened, anyway).



Spacers on the sprockets kept the chain runs straight.

just a quick question, I see you bolted into 80/20 for your wheels. did you have any problems with the two outside wheels coming loose during competition?