Mecanum for the Masses!

If you haven’t come across Mecanum wheels before you may just think these oddities look a bit inefficient with their large collection of 45 degree offset rollers. However, Mecanum wheels have some brilliant properties. As well as regular forward and backward motion you can use combinations of different wheels to make sets of Mecanum wheels do diagonal and sideways motion in robot platforms.

It’s fabulous to watch these wheels working and they always draw attention. They can also serve to make all manner of accurate manoeuvres possible and might just be the edge you need in your next robot build. There are DIY Mecanum wheel designs out there to 3D print. A drawback here is that you need a lot of accurate components per wheel which can be a lot of work to print well. With lots of components you tend to accumulate tolerances and it can also be hard to make a set that tracks well. Commercial Mecanum wheels have often been less affordable for similar reasons – lots of parts and lots of assembly.

This set of Mecanum wheels looks accurately made and very reasonably priced. They are 80mm in diameter so need to go on a fairly large platform. They are made from ABS and rubber so should offer some ruggedness as well as some grip. If you have played with Mecanum wheels before you may know that grip is pretty key and hard smooth plastic rollers can often struggle on smooth surfaces. We’d guess that these rubber rollers would be pretty decent.

They are fitted with TT motor couplers. TT motors are pretty common components in hobby robotics with a range of gearbox and voltage options. They are also common enough that there are numerous commercial and DIY options for converting TT couplers to other standards so you should be able to create a drive system that fits your needs.