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Spockie-Tech
Site Admin
Joined: 31 May 2004
Posts: 3160
Location: Melbourne, Australia
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They also dont offer many advantages other (than the "way cool" factor), and a do have a heap of disadvantges.
The main purpose of tracks is to spread a high weight load (like a tank or tractor) over a higher area on soft ground that cant support high PSI loads.. like sand, mud or some other terrain that a wheel would get bogged in, with the load spread out, the tracks are less likely to sink.
They dont offer any traction benefit, on hard flat ground, and in some cases may even reduce it, since (I think, its a complex subject) that rubber needs a certain amount of weight to "deform" it and make it grip even slightly textured surfaces with maximum force.
They are *heavy* and very intricate with a lot of things that have to be perfect or they will fall-off, break, jam and so on. Not many people (except george ) would have the patience to fiddle them into working when you can just slap a wheel on any old how, crooked and all and still move. slightly crooked treads and they will fall off straight away.
They probably use a lot more power when turning since 90% of the tread is being scrubbed sideways, although this *may* be offset by their lower surface-area/loading (again, a contentious subject)
One advantage is they are are harder to "high side" (get stuck with drive wheels in the air) that wheels, although 6WD (or even 4WD) probably is good enough for most of our applications.
They're a lot more subject to damage and harder to repair then just bunging another wheel on.
and so on and so on.
Of course, for "that looks cool" factor, they are hard to beat, and this outweighs all the disadvantages for a lot of people. in fact, probably a high percentage of otherwise average tracked bots probably made it onto TV shows just because of their cool looks.
An easy way out might be to just stretch a big inside-out rubber timing belt around a 4WD robot with a few guide rails to keep it in place. _________________ Great minds discuss ideas. Average minds discuss events. Small minds discuss people
Last edited by Spockie-Tech on Thu Nov 24, 2005 10:39 pm; edited 2 times in total
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Thu Nov 24, 2005 8:58 pm |
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