My team is divide into 2. We have same people saying to stick with the standard gears in the dive motors and other that want the high speed. What has your team done? Any problems with that this year?
Most teams do high speed internal gears on a direct drive with the 4.0" omni wheels. These works really well, is a good balance of speed and torque, and doesn’t stall.
However, which gears you choose depends on the external gearing of your drive train, the wheels you use, and the purpose of your robot. Do you want to be able to push people around, or move around the field quickly? Its a trade off. Also, look into transmissions that can switch the external gearing from high torque to high speed.
what Cameron said in general is correct, we have the torque options for a few reasons, we have a lifter, so we want to be 100% sure we can always get back to the climbing zone at the end, also as a side effect of our lifter we have a very heavy robot, thus more torque is wanted on the drive
Yes, i use 4 motors for the drive, 2 on each side, all being high speed motors. This has 4" omni wheels are is fast enough and still offers a lot of torque. I also use chain to connect the two motors of the respected side. Then of course distribute the power to the wheels with again chain. This also is a relevantly quick build started and finished in 4 hours. This offers a lot of room for versatility if you would like more torque or even a greater speed it is easy to change and quick for the next competition.
I agree with what has been said, generally it is nice to be able to move around quickly to pick up balls, which would lead to the implementation of speed drive. At the beginning of the season, we had a torque drive since our robot had a lot of excess steel on it, but we found that even with the weight speed was still ok with no stalling or anything. However, if you like being able to defend or move any where you want to without worrying about other teams blocking you then torque is the way to go.
Try them both out and see which one you like better. If your drive dies too fast on the 1.6:1 internal ratio, stick with the internal 1:1. Test.