Hello I just have a couple questions regarding the center wheel in an H-drive setup.
Typically what speed do you aim to run it at?
What motor/gearbox do you recommend to drive it with?
What are some of the best ways to pick the center wheel up off of the ground?
Do you need to clean the rollers of the Omni wheels? How often?
Anything other comments or suggestions welcome!
The GreenHorns built an H drive for Ri3D this year. We geared ours for between 3 and 4 fps. The reasoning is that we wanted higher torque and there is no need for a high speed strafe wheel imo. The slower strafe that we have allows for precision when stacking totes. We used a toughbox mini with a standard gear ratio and 1 cim motor. It seemed to work well, but I’m sure you could do it with just about any single cim gearbox as well.
As for picking the wheel up off the ground I’ve heard ideas for both springs and pneumatics thrown around. Using springs you would have suspension on the center wheel and therefore wouldn’t need an active mechanism to go over the scoring platform. Using pneumatics, you’ll probably end up with more weight, but it’ll be a more solid solution imo. I would make an effort to get springs to work however. We have never had to clean the omni wheel rollers on our H drive although we are driving on non-pfficial carpet. 4607 has used omni wheels the past 2 years and I don’t remember cleaning the rollers once. I don’t believe it will be a problem. Overall I’m glad that people are taking an H drive into consideration for Recycle Rush. I think it will prove to be an effective drivetrain.
That all depends on what you plan to use it for.
If the primary use is to make fine adjustments to lateral position of the bot when trying to place (or pick up) a game piece, check out this link.