pic: 2016 OFF-SEASON SWERVE CONCEPT

[Kevin Ainsworth]

Originally Posted by asid61

THANK YOU, KEVIN.
I ALWAYS LOVE YOUR SWERVE DRIVES.

Seriously though, I do always enjoy them. The color coding is surprisingly useful.
Interesting that you've chosen to go with 4 swerves instead of 2 to hole the forks on with this one. Was there any particular driver for the switch?
I liked dual-775pro swerve until I realized that if you want to run 4 modules, you only have 4 PDP slots left, and IIRC having more than 1 is illegal. Still, it's a very cool drivetrain.

We use color coding in our day jobs so it is easy to differentiate the various components, it also assists when discussing a design in a group environment. For example, did you mean "Why did we use four screws on the blue wheel mounts?" We did use four screws on the last design to help with thrust loads. This particular design has a live axle so we do not get the advantage of the axle boxing the side plates together. This time we used counter bored holes from below instead of clearance holes from above to assist in assembly and disassembly.

The motor usage is a tradeoff, this setup would only be used in a very specific game, we understand that. There are dual 775Pros and the gear ratio and wheel speed is artificially high for a reason. Since in a swerve drive with a large sweeping arc your outer most wheels are the limiting factor in surface speed across the floor. The inner wheel is traveling the slowest and your outer wheels dictate the velocity limit. This design would allow you to overdrive your outer wheel to increase its velocity and therefore maintain your surface speed during a dynamic move. We would never power all eight 775Pros at 100%. The net average current would be similar to a 6 CIM drivetrain. Imagine rotating around a front tire while still maintaining a high rate of speed across the floor. In that scenario your outer wheel is required to go much faster than the inner tire and much faster than your speed across the carpet. This swerve would allow for that additional outer wheel speed.