Mecanum drive

[TheLordsChipsBuilder]

what motor/gear configuration would be the best to use with a mecanum wheel drive? The set up my team is using right now had posed some issues with speed.

[JustinM]

0 motors at a 0-0 ratio.

In all seriousness you won’t get much speed out of the meccanum wheels as they are very inefficient. I recommend switching to a simple tank drive with omni wheels

[Mr_L_on_Yoshi]

As what I see, a normal motor on a 60:84 ratio would be in fact enough to be able to have an insanely fast drive. If it’s not fast enough, make the motors high speed.

What mecanum wheels do mainly is if you tell them to go forward, they would basically push inwards. And the force used inwards will then be translated to push forwards. I will assume there will be some inefficiency, but not enough to seriously harm or change the way the robot moves.

But even though, mecanum drives are slow, and adding a gear ratio will insanely help, but the ratio may take up needed space. So if you are fine with about one or two inches wasted on having a ratio, go ahead! But otherwise go with an H-Drive. After thinking around, I actually went to a conclusion that X-Drives wastes way more space than mecanum because of large wheels at a 45 degree angle, they are very torque-lacking, and I also went to a conclusion when practicing that X-Drives are just as inefficient as Mecanum drives because the rollers for mecanum and X-Drives both have their rollers at a 45 degree angle.
Otherwise, if you have a gear ratio or internal gearing inside of the motor for mecanum drives, you will have a robot that can go just as fast or maybe faster than an X-Drive, and you have just taken up less space on your robot. Using mecanum is a smart decision, but you ought to know what you are doing and the direction of the drive . As what I can tell, the only con is that mecanum drives are signifigantly worse than X-Drives when strafing.
EDIT//: Note, these are my studies, they may be wrong

A good amount of this is misguided. I’ll be brief because I should be writing a paper:

1. X drives… actually don’t waste more space than mecanums. In fact, they’re about equal. (IF built properly) the mecanum wheels are much thicker than omni wheels. Add all the needed supports, and a 3.25 in omni setup can be placed in just about the same space.
2. mechanum drives “waste” as much torque as x drives. 45 degree rollers…
3. In fact, more. The cambered (think thats the right word) rollers are just terrible on VEX’s part. A better mecanum would have parallel rollers, like GER’s custom mecanums.

Mecanums THEMSELVES aren’t a bad idea. (aside form the terrible geometry which losses over 50% torque when strafing IIRC) The problem is mostly with VEX.

[Connor]

A good amount of this is misguided. I’ll be brief because I should be writing a paper:

1. X drives… actually don’t waste more space than mecanums. In fact, they’re about equal. (IF built properly) the mecanum wheels are much thicker than omni wheels. Add all the needed supports, and a 3.25 in omni setup can be placed in just about the same space.
2. mechanum drives “waste” as much torque as x drives. 45 degree rollers…
3. In fact, more. The cambered (think thats the right word) rollers are just terrible on VEX’s part. A better mecanum would have parallel rollers, like GER’s custom mecanums.

Mecanums THEMSELVES aren’t a bad idea. (aside form the terrible geometry which losses over 50% torque when strafing IIRC) The problem is mostly with VEX.

Yea I agree with that. That’s why I edited that it may be wrong because I realized that my research and experimentation doesn’t look spot-on. Sorry I made the post misguided.

[Mr_L_on_Yoshi]

Yea I agree with that. That’s why I edited that it may be wrong because I realized that my research and experimentation doesn’t look spot-on. Sorry I made the post misguided.

It’s alright. I’m glad you’re having success in spite of this however.

[Riggyz505]

My team has both types of drives with the same gear ratio. Is a omni-wheel Holonomic drive faster? By the the word you are looking for is cambered.

[Mr_L_on_Yoshi]

My team has both types of drives with the same gear ratio. Is a omni-wheel Holonomic drive faster? By the the word you are looking for is cambered.

Thanks
And the Holonomic is faster and has slightly better acceleration. (But has less torque) The holonomic is also 4 times as fast when strafing.