My team is considering building a 3 motor H-Drive design for TT this year: I’ve been looking around for some good H-Drive (with a strafing Omni wheel in the middle) designs used in VEX over the years, but I haven’t really seen any high-quality designs that show the ideal function of an H-Drive with a strafing Omni. I was curious if anyone has seen a really well built and well-used H-Drive for any of the past challenges (or for TT!) and could link a photo or video for us to look at to figure out why their design was so successful, or if the lack of documented strafing H drive designs says something about our building a strafing H-drive in the first place, and that we should reconsider our drive choice.
Any advice/guidance on this matter would be great.
H drives aren’t too common at high levels. at lower levels, it’s kind of becasue some just haven’t thought of the idea.
World-class driving doesn’t really need strafing too often, so that’s why you don’t really see too many at those high levels.
I, on the other hand, suck at driving. I tired one in ITZ, and burnt out a motor trying to use it wrongly. In FRC, I convinced my treat to give it a shot. It was really cool, but keeping consistent contact with the ground to keep it effective was difficult. We had to develop an “H-Drive Fine Adjustment Tool” (AKA: “Hammer”) to keep it functioning properly.
This year, I have one motor left that I’m temporarily using for an H drive (which I’ll change later when I get Better at driving because I have a better idea for the motor).
I’m offsetting my H drive to act more like a pivot point at times rather than straight up strafing. It’s difficult to explain, but I still stand by what I’m doing. I have very specific usages in mind, and I know that I’m doing what will work well for my design.
We typically don’t see strafing at all in high levels because the drivers are so good that they don’t need to strafe to be very effective. They have better functions for thier motor, or they have The advantages of tank Drive that they perfer over mecanums or X drive.
Edit: 42700N has an H drive in thier reveal that seems to be pretty useful.
I’ve never been a fan of H-drives due to the inconsistency that @Got_a_Screw_Loose mentioned above, but some people can pull it off really well. I know @meepmeepme has a pretty good one.
I believe for a H-drive you need the strafe wheel to be centered on the robot so it strafes straight, but I might be wrong.
We tried building a h-drive and it was really unreliable. I would suggest using x-drive, which is better in almost every aspect. If you have to use an h-drive, I would suggest making a pivoting h-drive so the wheel is always in contact with the ground. That is what some FRC teams do, and it works really well. Here is a picture of what I am talking about (you don’t have to use 2 motors).
An X drive will get better torque and speed in the strafing direction. I would recommend looking into an X drive or a Kiwi drive. Kiwi drive isnt nearly on the level of an X drive, but it is still a good holonomic drive base.
This reminds me of my H-Drive I built during SS early season
This robot is very compact but it probably will be a challenge with the V5 motors, but here’s a very nice H-Drive
I hate to correct you but getting both more torque and speed is impossible unless you add more motors. You would either get more torque and less speed or less torque and more speed. An X-Drive has less torque but it does have more speed.
