My team has just begun creating our 3rd iteration for Turning Point, and we are looking for advice with regards to the drive. Recently, we’ve been doing some research as to what the best 6 motor drive will be for this challenge (we are not yet using v5), and the best we have found so far is a 6 motor chained drive: http://farm6.staticflickr.com/5191/7365188616_5fd0cd2800_b.jpg . As a new-ish team, we don’t know if this is a good drive to go with for turning point, or if there’s a better way to chain together 6 motors that will make the drive train more efficient. Because our next tournament is in less than a week and we don’t have time to play around with each design and test if it will work for us, we would love some advice on whether or not this is the best drive to go with. So far, our past two drive trains have been geared (which we found wasn’t fantastic because of lots of shoving in our region which made the gears slip) and 1:1 motor to wheel. A drive we really liked (but had no idea how to build) was team 240p’s “medium quality” drive. If anyone has any suggestions for a drive that may be better or more efficient then the one we are planning on building right now, we would be very grateful: Also, I looked through the vex forum the best I could before posting this and could not find a conversation similar, but if there is one that I just missed, could someone link it?
You might want to search for 1103 round-up drive train.
If we are looking at chaining up all the 6 wheels, then 1103 has one of the best drive train.
But you will need to do a bit of modifications (which we did it before)… 1103 used 4 motors, you will need to see how you want to add in the other 2 motors.
Edit… thought I should add in a bit of pro and cons of chaining up all the wheels… no doubt you can Ensure all the wheels are powered all the time, but be careful of unnecessary friction due to the chain,etc. You will need to have good build quality.
You beat me to it. Here’s the intellitek promo video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4CoQzbXLR34. It was the perfect mix of optimal mechanical and programming magic and lest we forget as you note done with 6 269 motors and just 4 393s.
@gcfky@mengYou But do you think it will be able to get onto the platforms with the 5w c-channel and not hit the platform on the way up? I’m concerned about the placement of the wheels and its agility when it comes to driving over things. Thanks again for all the advice!
A six wheel is actually better than a 4 wheel on climbing the platform as you have more powered wheel contact through the process. And if you drive the heavier end up first you get a gravity assist when your second wheel crosses the top of the tube. The issue with the 1103 is that you probably should not use the 1x5x1for your side rails. I would use the 1x2x1 with motors mounted on the center holes and elevate the idler gears on pillow blocks
Generally, direct driving wheels will be very helpful, and make everything just a tad nicer. I think you could either try to do a gearbox in the front/back (so have two motors side by side), or run chain up all the way, with the front wheels being offset from the rear wheels.
