We bought a Dagu Wild Thumper 6WD All-Terrain Chassis, Black, 34:1. We removed the middle two wheels to make the 6-wheel drive into a 4-wheel drive in order to install 2 brushes in the middle. We also changed the bigger wheels, but after doing this, our robot can’t turn well, even if the one side speed is set to 3200 (no limit speed of SMC G218v15motor controller), is there any solution to make him turn more Is it better?
Hello.
Can you post some pictures showing the modifications you made to your Wild Thumper?
- Patrick
Removing the middle wheels and swapping the remaining ones for larger wheels like that would impact the skid steer dynamics of the Wild Thumper chassis significantly, and I am not surprised you are having trouble making the robot turn with those modifications. Removing the middle wheels is especially consequential for the force required to turn due to the high length-to-width aspect ratio of the 6 wheel-drive Wild Thumper chassis; a narrower wheelbase makes it much harder to turn.
You might confirm that your batteries are fully charged, but otherwise, all of the solutions for making turning easier would require changing some of your hardware. Some of those options include:
- Apply more power to the motors by using a higher voltage (though keep in mind this can reduce their operating lifetimes and it makes it easier to overload the motors which can lead to immediate damage).
- Replace the wheels with smaller wheels and/or wheels that cause less friction when moving sideways
- Add a middle wheel back onto each side of the robot.
- Reconfigure the robot to have a better length-to-width ratio for skid steering.
- Patrick