I was working on a two-motor drive design and was wondering yalls thoughts on whether this would be practical to save motors for other components here is the rough sketch
1 Like
While chaining your drive wheels together is a good idea to keep them all powered, I would highly recommend 4 motor drive at a minimum for this years game. 4 motors to manipulate game objects is enough for almost all situations.
11 Likes
This, and other building a quality drive posts by Xenon, are good references for anyone wanting to build a standard tank drive.
10 Likes
Though having 6 motors sounds good for the rest of your robot it is not the best idea, 4 motors are really good for any kind of robot so you can carry a good amount of weight and go over game obstacles. I really like the rough sketch though and it looks like a good idea, I might try to make something like that in my vex class.
1 Like
With a game that only has a few different moving parts, it’s not necessary to give four motors for all of the subsystems other than the drive. Most robots are going to be running 4 or 6 motor drive this year, because with the right design and planning, you can use a 1 or 2 motor launcher mechanism with a 1 or 2 motor intake. While using two motors for your drive will give you a lot more freedom to power the launcher, intake, etc., it will make your drive extremely weak and will overheat after a short amount of time due to the stress put on the motors. In the end, it’s up to your team’s decision, but just keep in mind that you have 8 motors to use, and generally don’t want any left over. If you want more help on how to use motors, there are a lot of robot reveals that list their specs and motor usage, like this video, Vex Robotics Spin Up Reveal | 4082B - YouTube with the specs in the description.
Tldr: Two motors for your drive will be weak and overheat quickly when driving around a whole robot. Most teams use 4-6 motors on their drive, and leave the rest for the scoring subsystems.
4 Likes
With the four-motor drive would i still be able to use the chain with it or would that be unnecessary for 4 motors?
2 Likes
Not a good idea you will over heat superfast and you wo t uave any torquetopmay defense. I myself usea 6motor drive and am able to accomplish all of thetask besides expasnion with 2 motors
1 Like
what cartridges are you using in your drive?
It really depends on where you decide to put the motors. If you have enough space to put the motors directly to the wheel, then you don’t have to use chain, but I would still recommend using either chain or gears to link the wheels together to maximize power to all the wheels. If you don’t have enough space, then you can use a gear or chain ratio and have the motors driving a gear that is then linked to the wheels. Our tipping point robot from last year used a 6 motor drive, and we have a video describing how we used gears to speed up the robot and also have all the motors powering every wheel here: 2654P 6 Motor Drive (VEX Tipping Point) - YouTube
3 Likes
I use 600 cartrigies but i gear it down to 450rp. And i use 2.75in omnis. This gives a speed 9f 64in per second
1 Like
If you are doing 4 motors for drive i would highly recomend 600 cartriges geared down 3:7(36:84) 257rpm on 4inch omnis(54ish inper sec) . If you need an example i can private message you one
1 Like
yes that would be fine
That is an option, but the motors might get in the way of the intake because they are mear the front and back of the robot. Here is an alternate solution to keep four motors and chain to connect the wheels. I highlighted the chain to see it easier
wouldnt that just use the chain for the one wheel?
i was think it would be able to use the chain for both wheels
but yes i under stand about the motor placement i will try to use that
With chain, it’s harder to link wheels through two motors because then the wheels would spin opposite from each other. If you had a separate sprocket on the middle shaft then link that to the bottom wheel then it would work, but not if you went directly from the front wheel all the way to the back
2 Likes
