Swerve Drive V1 - Differential
About
This swerve drive follows the same math and principles as the other design. The only two major differences being the pods' design and the electronics choice.
The design choice for a differential drive was that there were open-source designs already available, this should've worked but there was an issue with the motors I bought. I had at first bought two at a 30:1 gearing, and after I assembled the first pod and went to buy more, they weren't being sold because of tariffs, so I had to buy a different gearing. This made it incredibly difficult to control the two pods using the differential design.
How a Differential Drive Works
There are two gears on the top and bottom, they both mesh with gears in between them. The rod in between these two gears has the wheel connected, such that the wheel is centered inside the large gears. If rotating both gears in opposite directions the wheel will spin(left). If the gears are at differing speeds, in this case only one moving, the wheel will spin and rotate(middle). If both gears move in the same direction the wheel will only rotate(right).
Project Flaws
As mentioned, the incompatible motors made it very difficult to control, but there were also other flaws that I had to improve on. Firstly, I was overcomplicating it by using two arduino megas and an esp32, when I could've done the whole thing with just one esp32. This was mainly due to a lack of knowledge on my part. The wiring was also sub par, it was very disorganized, with wires strewn everywhere. Keeping these things in mind, for the version 2 I planned out the components/wiring better and condensed everything down to one esp32.