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Wheel placement
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assassin



Joined: 27 Jun 2004
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Wheel placement

Would you guys agree with this statement from http://www.warbotsxtreme.com/Builders-Guide.htm about ram bots design

"Make sure that your wheel spacing front to back is greater than the wheel spacing side to side or your bot will be difficult to drive."

This is for a 4 wheel drive bot. I would have thought equal or wide spacing side to side would be better. There implying a narrow bot would be better to drive.

Post Sun Feb 05, 2006 9:40 pm 
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Valen
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i think plan-G and plan-F are wider than they are long, best robots ever to drive.
i think it makes a difference because we are all wheel driven not just 2 wheels.

it goes in straight lines all by itself ;->
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Post Sun Feb 05, 2006 11:44 pm 
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Waddy the phoenix



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after many ram bots Smile i do agree having the wheels centered and wide apart work a treat however you have to make sure your motors are in about the same condition or your robot will constantly veere off which gets very infuriating so the ideal thing is if you change 1 motor change them all if you change 1 gear box change them all and if one side goes out do the same because unless you make a rig for it to ensure that all the motors are driving in the same condition and the outside is taking the same strain then your robot will move off to one side obviously the wider your wheels though the more stable it is and the less you need to worry about that sorta thing Smile
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Post Mon Feb 06, 2006 12:20 am 
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Nick
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quote:
Wheel placement


Without a doubt, the best wheel placement is on the ground Laughing. After that, having a short, wide wheelbase makes the bot turn faster and possibly harder to drive straight.
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Post Mon Feb 06, 2006 12:36 am 
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Timothy Forde
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Well it then becomes a matter of opion Very Happy
The longer the robot the easyer to go in a line however this comes at the trade off of makeing it much hader to turn the robot for the motors

KO is wider that in lenth though not by much and i'll never had driveing problems

Rat would be good to find out about as it dose the other exstrem with it's wheels as close togeather as possible not sure how it drives?

Really just go for what ever suits you as it will always have more control than a 2wd robot (apart form gyros maybe)
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Post Mon Feb 06, 2006 1:27 am 
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Knightrous
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Just put 4 wheels randomly in the robot, it doesn't matter Laughing
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Post Mon Feb 06, 2006 1:32 am 
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assassin



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I agree, that all makes sense. thanx

Post Mon Feb 06, 2006 7:47 am 
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prong
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speedbump is a 4wd ram bot that has NO front back motor distance (them all being in a line)

Having your wheels further out makes it easyier to steer I think, and contary to what Nick says have a short wide wheel base makes the bot turn SLOWER.

double the wheelbase width and you halve the turning speed.

it is early on a monday to feel free to disagree Smile

Also speedbump is pretty damn hard to steer in a line, say in the wacky race, but I have never noticed it in the arena.

Post Mon Feb 06, 2006 8:08 am 
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Nexus
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I generally agree with pretty much everyone about wider bots are easier to steer but have been thinking of another angle to this.
In short any robot can ram another but to do maximum damage I would imagine a narrow long bot would be better suited as a rammer.
If u where to ram a door down thats the shape u would use by default not a wide box.
It would make it harder to steer but it would also put more energy into the tip I would imagine.
Just a thought anyway
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Post Mon Feb 06, 2006 8:15 am 
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prong
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It depends on what you want to do with your rambot I think.

If you have enough drive power that you will be able to inflict damage then a smaller contact area will be better for delivery the enegery, but if it was me I would just put a big spike on the robot, and you can do that to any robot!

My plan with speedbump as a rambot is more of a wedgebot. It is super wide so very easy to catch the other robot and the width makes it hard for the robot to get away. It also lets you picot around the other robot very easily. (if or when i can drive Razz)

I think as a wedge speedbump works well wide, once a robot gets on top it is very hard for it to get off, but say in comparision with Stainless steel rat (kind of the opposite wedge, skinny and curved sideways) robots fall off the side much more easily, though it is much easyier to get them onto the rats wedge in the first place

Post Mon Feb 06, 2006 8:21 am 
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kenshin



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this is a bit OT, but hey...
I was wondering, if you could choose, would normal 2wd or off-centered 2wd (like PQ) be better to drive?
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Post Mon Feb 06, 2006 8:50 am 
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DumHed
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I think the main point about the width is only relevant to 4WD bots with a wheel in each corner.

The longer it is compared to the width the more each wheel will have to slide sideways to steer, which makes steering a lot slower, but the bot is much more likely to drive in a straight line.

Speedbump has no resistance to steering forces, since all the wheels are in a straight line.
Stainless Rat's wheels are all mounted down the back, with more width than length between them, so they have little resistance to steering too.
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Post Mon Feb 06, 2006 9:01 am 
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Daniel
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The 2wd staggered setup in PQ made is very easy to drive in a straight line and it turned well in one direction, but it it jumped a bit when turning the other way. You can't really tell in the videos so it can't be too bad. But with the staggered setup you don't have to worry about needing a gyro as much as an inline 2wd setup as it drives very straight even when coming out of a turn, you just end up turning slower compared to the inline setup.

Post Mon Feb 06, 2006 12:42 pm 
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Waddy the phoenix



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yeah i had always wondered about the stagered setup but yeah definatly the closer the wheels the less resistance to turning but it generally can make it harder to drive (depending on the placement in the bot) so yeah it is all relative
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Post Mon Feb 06, 2006 4:17 pm 
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Glen
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wonder what would happen if someone tried 3wd... with two wheels on one side and one in the middle on the other side lol

i think weight balance is just as important as the amount of wheels and there placement.


quote:

"Make sure that your wheel spacing front to back is greater than the wheel spacing side to side or your bot will be difficult to drive."


i would say thats just for keeping it ina straight line, but with gyros and radio settings its pretty useless to set your robot up like that, itll just never steer right.
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Post Mon Feb 06, 2006 5:42 pm 
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