Our team is looking to move to the next level for competition this coming year. We are looking at the Andy Mark SDS MK4 swerve wheels. I have no idea where to even begin. We definitely want them to come assembled, but I have no idea what to do for the rest of the options. My IT guy said that I might want to go with either L1 or L2, but I am not sure, or anything else really. We have spark max motors already, but what option would I choose, and motor and pinion type means nothing to me. Would anyone be willing to help me decide how this works, so that I can bring them to the table for my kiddos? I can answer questions about our robot Oh yeah, there’s also the issue of programming these things too. UGH! We run Java and I was wondering if there were premade sets out there?
Thanks everyone!
So, I assume you’re going for using a SDS (swerve drive specialies) swerve drive. The main options for those are MK4s and MK4is. MK4is are basically MK4s but with the motors more protected, so most people buy MK4is.
Both NEO motors from REV and falcon 500s from VEX work in these swerve modules.
Since you have spark max motor controllers, you want to use NEOs from REV for your swerve drive.
Spark max motor controllers work with NEO motors. REV sells both. The pinion should be a pinion for NEOs. You need eight spark maxes and eight neos to run a swerve drive, assuming you are going to use 4 modules, which is about average.
L2 is the gearing I’d choose, as it is faster than L1.
There are a lot of java libraries for swerve drive, I beleive that yagsl would be a good one to try.
If you have spark maxes you are probably running NEO motors, and will need the corresponding pinions. L2 is probably the safest option for the gear ratio since it balances speed and torque (pushing power/acceleration). L1 will have more torque, L3 will have more speed. There are a variety of example code bases (mainly java) out there including Yet Another Generic Swerve Library (YAGSL) and 364s Base Falcon Swerve (which would need to be adapted for your motors), but someone with more experience with swerve with NEO motors will probably have recommendations.
Go for L2. L1 ratio is traction limited and leaving performance on the table.
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