Hello again,
beside the different layout that has to be done for omni and mechanum wheels, are there any notable differences ?
It seems that mecanum wheels withstand a greater load. Is it true ?
Thanks again,
I know this is a very old thread. But, I was doing some reasearch, and though I should add my own thougts for future researchers.
I can see a few advantages to Mecanum wheels.
The 1st is that the small wheels are bigger. This may not matter for when a single omni-wheel is traveling perpendicular to its axis, but when it is being dragged sideways, the larger diameter of the large wheel permits it to roll over larger obstacles.
The 2nd advantage comes from the idea that robots mostly move forward and backwards, and sideways to a lesser degree. If you use the Mechanum wheels, in a 4 wheel configureation, this permits the large outside diameter of the omni-wheel to be able to overtake the large obstacles in forward or reverse travel. For the 3-omni wheel configuration of the non-mecanum wheels, one of the wheels are always being dragged sideways. So, you are much more limited in terms of the terrain you can traverse. Also, in that mode, you generally have less total motor power being applied to the wheels.
I suspect that the biggest disadvantage to the Mechanum wheels is that they are less intuitive to understand.
-Joe
If a manufacturer designs the wheel correctly, it should be able to support quite a lot of weight. However, you need to look a the load rating (if available) per wheel.
If a manufacturer designs the wheel correctly, it should be able to support quite a lot of weight. However, you need to look a the load rating (if available) per wheel.
We don’t quite have a comparison table between the two, though they do allow for very similar motion. Points to research may includes efficiency (one is likely far less efficient than the other in certain directions), configuration (having four omniwheels facing the same direction is useless, whereas Mecanum wheels must face in the same direction) etc. Regarding load, it comes down to the way the wheels are constructed, and since the design is different, they are not easy to compare (would you compare overall diameter, material of construction, bearings, diameter of outer rollers etc?). Hope this provides some food for thought.