Week of 1/12

This week, I spent my time redesigning at finalizing the design for the treads for the wheels of my rover. However before getting to this step, the first thing that I wanted to get out of the way this week was to order the new TPU filament for the treads. After doing a final look for TPU to make sure I had what I wanted, it was ready to go. The 85a variant of TPU will provide a great amount of traction with a I friction coefficient, allowing the rover to far more easily climb and traverse steeper obstacles.

Trapezoidal grouser

While waiting for the filament to arrive, I have been doing a lot of work researching many different types of traction patterns and designs for the grousers to allow for the best traction an control over the rover. The first thing I adjusted from my old design was the number of grousers making contact withe the ground as well as the height of the grousers, adjust it from 1% to 2% of the wheel diameter which allows for better overall traction for dirt and rocky terrain. During this time I also redesigned the shape of the grouser from rectangular to trapezoidal which will not only keep it more stable but also ensure that it digs into the dirt more and allows for better traction. For the design I am currently torn between the straight grousers and slanted grousers, which allows far more work be taken off of the motors when skid steering which is the turning mechanism for the design. Once the filament arrives, I plan to test each as I am unsure how well the slanted grousers will be able to be printed however, it will provide a great added feature if it does work correctly.

Slanted grousers

Straight grousers