pic: Team 696 Swerve Drive module

[apalrd]

A few questions concerning handling of forces:

-Where do top loads go? This is the force applied downward by the robot
-Where to side loads go? These forces are applied by the wheel on the ground, and must be handled without bending things.
-Thrust loads also come from both miter gears. The horizontal one appears to be adequately handled, how about the vertical one?
-While it appears impossible to design a miter gear assembly of this size without one miter gear being in cantilever, shorten the unsupported section of the shaft leading up to that miter gear as much as much as possible.

More questions:
-How is this going to be manufactured? It looks like several pieces of plate magically held together by virtual constraints, with some very tiny bolts holding the top plate to the side plates.

Recommendations:
-Place the upper module support in between the turning gear and the module top, and use a thrust bushing or something equivalent there.
-Make a disc around the bottom of the module to react to several faces on the robot, to react side loads.
-Make the module smaller. There is extra space on both sides of the wheel, that space does not need to exist and any extra shaft length is unsupported under (quite a lot of) load.
-Make the lower shaft dead. Attach the gear directly to the wheel, and attach both to the shaft via bearings. By doing this you can make the axle structural, which should increase the rigidity of the entire assembly.

[Garret]

Why is the miter gear cantilevered so far out? It looks as if you could just move the whole top plate down and it wouldn't interfere with the gear but it would greatly increase the strength and reduce the loads experienced where the module meets the rest of the robot. I am also curious as to how you are holding the module together?