pic: ABS-122, shifter-in-tube chassis

[Cash4587]

Originally Posted by GeeTwo

If 60% of your weight was on the front wheels, I would recommend (other things equal) that you drive the front wheels directly; this is ultimately the same reason that West Coast drives the center wheels directly - to make the drive to the most dependable wheels invulnerable to a broken chain/belt.

On the other hand, if 60% of my robot's weight were on the front wheels in a static configuration (and presuming I had at least six wheels), I would be VERY worried about the robot falling on its face in a braking maneuver.

We had #35 chain direct driving the first wheels. Given the strength of 35 chain, and the fact that we put the chains in line, as well as calculated the direct c-c we had no issue other than chain stretch which is to be expected. We had all 6 drivetrain motors above those wheels accounting for the rest of the weight minus the catapult and battery.

With this being said. After 2 regionals, Champs, and an offseason already we never replaced 35 chain, or 25 chain. We were never worried about it breaking either. It is just something that doesn't occur that often if chain is used correctly, which we did, just without tensioners. Which in our case worked very, very, very well, and in many cases would be fine for most every other team in FRC not wanting to do some of the precision complex things things we need to get our code really dialed in.