Our team was going to try to add a turret to our robot for the coming build season because our aiming time was a lot slower than we wanted. I was looking at some COTS options, and I saw the armabot turret240. It looks really nice but the rotation is a bit slow. Are there any COTS options that are faster? If not how should we go about designing a turret that would be faster? Any help is appreciated.
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We used the greyT turret by WCP, it was pretty quick. In addition to this if you don’t like the speed then you can always change out the gearing in the Versa planetary.
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If you want another good cots option, the west coast products greyt turret and shooter kits are well designed. However, building a turret may not be as hard as you think. The simplest solution would be to put a lazy Susan worth a >7 in diameter cutout under your shooter to mount it. This worked great for us in the 2020 season. A link to the turntable we used: https://www.mcmaster.com/1544T3 (we had to cut out the hole from 6.33 in to 7.5 in)
Another option is to replicate something like the greyt turret that uses a bunch of roller bearings. This takes some more time and complexity but results in a more stable shooting platform.
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This was FRC Team 1501’s turret shooter. 210 degree field of shooting and auto tracking using a Pixie camera.
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“19 seconds of logos” – CinemaSins 
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For 2020, we came up with a design for a turret that is not atypical. After looking at the CAD’s, I realized that it was very similar to how the greyt is designed. So much so, that when we ran into binding issues, we used the Greyt Turret CAD to find our solution.
This is the turntable we used. it’s a little pricier, but includes all of the smoothness and ID that you would ever desire (I know love at first sight is real because of the first time I saw the McMaster catalog). The best part by far is the ability to fit a slip ring around it
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We used the armabot and we’re really happy with it. In addition to our driver we had an operator. Their job was to keep the turret aimed towards the target so when we shot the automated sequence could be quicker.
We noticed some significant play in our turntable both up and down and side to side that affected our shooting accuracy. We are looking for a new turret system to minimize this play. Has your turntable encountered any problems like that? As of now we were considering just moving to the greyt turret style but if the problem is unique to our specific turntable we might try out yours.
we’ve had no play problems with the turret whatsoever. Its also extremely easy to mount, as both sides are tapped so all you have to do is get a few bolts.
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We used the same turntable in our turret and also had no issues. It was very easy to use.
Slow? Armabot’s website says it’s around 270 degrees per second if you throw a redline on it. That’s… pretty dang quick.
The Greyt turret allows for a versaplanetary so you can basically get whatever speed you want. 1720 ran a custom 3D printed turret pulley using an Andymark Neverrest through something like a 30:1 versaplanetary reduction + the belt & pulley stage. Ended up being fast enough and plenty powerful. You shouldn’t really need to throw a ton of power at a turret.
What’s important is having the ability to tune your turret so it operates smoothly & can acquire the target without bouncing around a bunch. A few degrees one way or the other is the difference between a score or a miss.
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We used this turntable in our spinning hopper and found it very annoying. The holes are not drilled very precisely and are visibly off of where they should be. Thus we had to use loose holes and even move holes slightly to get it to work.
Ohh, we were going to use a neo 550, completely forgot about the 775 option.
Definitely do the math on which motors you choose. We settled on a triple 775 pro config due to shooter wheel mass, wheel diameter and distance we wanted to shoot.
I’m assuming on your shooter right? That’s a lot of motors for a turret…
idk, 2 neo turret is all the rage with the kids.
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Call me crazy but I like my turrets pnuematically actuated.
The topic is “Fast turret,” what did you expect?
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