What type of drive train do you guys think is the best in terms of speed, pushing force, agility (mobility), durability, and overall efficiency? Typically, my team uses regular Tank drive, though we did experiment with Mecanums a few years back.
Swerve has always seemed to me like an unambiguous favorite if you have a good, light design and the resources to pull it off cleanly.
This offseason, 4464 is going to be looking at designing nonadrive/octanum, as that seems reasonably within our machining capabilities (we can do lasercut 1/4’’ delrin, which ought to be sufficient for the wheel modules if they’re designed properly) and offers a significant, strict increase in performance over slide drive/mecanum.
Quoted for truth. It took me a while to learn this, but in FRC, there is no universal “best” anything. Whatever works best for your team is going to give you the best results (that being said, 10 wheel nonacanumswerve drive isn’t the best drivetrain).
Isn’t tank drive the naming convention for the style of controls? Either way, if your using tank drive you MUST drop those center wheels. Otherwise the drive system will be useless because you wont be able to maneuver well…
Sorry my version of tank drive has been corrupted over the years due to how we ALWAYS have had 6-8 wheel drive and a long bot at that… forgot about the wide bots…
On Truck Town we like tank because it works well with our transmissions that shift from low to high gear. But I would like to experiment with other drive systems and wheels, because who wouldn’t want to use beast wheels like 25? :ahh: :ahh:
But I also like mecanum, maybe not for our team, but for other younger teams. They get the versatility that they want without taking on the challenge of swerve, that some of the best, most experienced teams can’t conquer. Just like 2010! shutters
Similarly if 6wd swerve has 100% chance of making it to Einstein I’m sure 8wd swerve would win.
For us on 3467 its 6wd all the way! Its simple, easy to build/maintain, provides great maneuverability/speed, and is extremely reliable. I’m sure down the road we will experiment with fancier systems but this fall we will work to refine our 6wd on a custom level that is better, lighter, and more reliable than any of our prior drive systems.