What are your guys thoughts on traction wheels?
Other than for putting in the middle of 6 wheel drivetrains with omnis front and back to prevent getting pushed from the sides I dont like to use them on drivetrains. I like to have minimal turning scrub with a rotation along the middle of my robot, unlike if you were to put 2 tractions in the front and 2 omnis in the back or vice versa.
I assume you are talking about the 3.25" traction wheel
Theres also the 4" high traction wheel
and the 4" “wheel” which is an inferior version of the high traction wheel.
you can also wrap antislip mat on the 4" wheel to get more traction than the 4" high traction wheel, however you start to get “tire wear” on the antislip mat.
Omnis are the best if you dont care about getting pushed from the side because in reality they have the most traction moving forward along with mecanum wheels and have no turning scrub.
Naturally the smaller versions of 4" wheels do not get as much traction for example the 2.75" omni does not get as much traction as the 4" omni as with 2.75" wheel with 4" high traction wheel. Since the 3.75" traction wheel is a new product I am not familiar with it’s tires characteristics.
One benifit to smaller wheels is increased acceleration due to a smaller wheel mass and thus less inertia the motor has to overcome.
Maybe it’s just me, but I don’t see how a smaller wheel will have such a large impact on acceleration. Obviously, with the larger wheels a single revolution will travel farther, which in turn means less torque, which means lower acceleration.
Consider this though: 2.75" wheels are being driven by speed motors, and 4" wheels are being driven by regular motors. They will have roughly the same torque, which should allow them to accelerate at about the same speed. Now, the larger wheels may have a larger mass, but compared to the overall mass of the robot, the difference between large and small wheels is minimal.
So I’m just curious, do large wheels with torque motors, compared to small wheels with speed motors, really have a major difference in acceleration? I welcome any criticism to my reasoning if anyone sees a problem with it.
There really isnt much of a difference. It’s just that its so miniscule it doesn’t matter but in physics a smaller wheel mass would result in a faster acceleration.
In vex these two will be the same:
393 torque 1:2 on 2" wheel = (x)km/h
393 torque 1:1 on 4" wheel = (x)km/h
In physics they wouldnt but like I said the difference is so small it doesn’t really matter. So yeah you are correct, no big impact.