It’s hard to believe it’s been a year since my last post – time really flies! Although I didn’t have much time this year to work on the robot I did make some progress. During this time I’ve been investigating options for mounting the wheel drive motors on the legs. Which side of the axle should contain the main drive gear? Should the motor casing be mounted on the leg’s inside or outside?
At first I tried mounting the wheel drive motor so that the casing protruded outwards from the robot’s main chassis. Although this configuration is the most space efficient overall, the downside is that the motor end protrudes about two inches from the robot’s perimeter. My concern is that a driving accident might cause the motor to hit something (a wall perhaps) and damage the motor.
After trying various options I finally settled on the design shown on the right (click image to see a larger picture). The wheel’s main drive gear is mounted to the axle on the same side as the wheel. Immediately above the gear is a quadrature encoder for measuring the wheel’s speed. The drive motor is then mounted above the encoder. The advantage of this design is that if the robot were to hit an obstruction the wheel protects the motor and encoder.
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The images below show the robot’s current status. Click any image to see a slideshow.