Is it possible to use or setup a 6 wheel Mecanum? We are considering switching drive setup and currently have a Mecanum setup that is having trouble on the hump. A forum member suggested switching to a 6 wheel omni wheel setup, but the students like the idea of strafing.
Is all this possible? Advice… Pros/cons?
Bill R.
#6101
You can find mecanums identical to your back set of wheels and chain it to whatever drives the back motors (or find a set of wheels identical to the front pair and chain it to the front motors). You’ll have to mess with your existing center of gravity to get the strafing right.
As for easyC, just drive the mecanums in the same direction as whichever set of wheels they are identical to
4 wheels are better at getting over the bump that 6 wheels, and mecanums are heavy, so the extra 2 wheels might hurt if you want to hang.
Mecanum wheels have trouble on the bump because the rollers on them generally seem to waste a bit of power, especially on the bump, leading to slipping or stalling.
Putting more would be an awkward solution that would not help. I would suggest going to a 4 wheel omni direct drive raised on pillow blocks to clear the bump. This is what we have been doing all year and it makes the bump hardly an obstacle at all.
Okay so in regards to the actual question.
6 wheel mecanum is possible yes but I would strongly suggest the center 2 wheels being omni wheels as to have better traction with the bump.
The way to program this would be a mecanum block and a 2 motor arcade block to control the additional wheels in the middle.
If you end up using a drive with 6 mecanums use 2 mecanum blocks were the front wheels are defined in each(twice) and the back and middle wheels are defined as the back wheels in one block each.
Actually I have seen and partnered up with team 1900R, they use an eight mecanum drive and their robot drives over the bump like a tank. I don’t know whether I’m right or not, but I always think that a mecanum wheel is equivalent to an omni wheel leaning 45 degrees on a holonomic drive. My suggestion is to try to y up some of them and always have four outputs and then use the holonomic drive block.
Well it is funny you say that about putting the omni’s in the middle. Our local career and tech has Mecanum on the 4 corners with 2 raised omni’s in the middle. The hump is really nothing after that. It is raised up a few holes and looks like a pulp wood or concrete truck set of wheel if you know what I mean. I like the idea and with them raised they do not interfere with strafing.
Thanks… confirms my thoughts
Bill R.
6101