We are a group of university students working on a multi-years project with the Solo12. Our team are working on implementing computer vision on the Solo12, and since we are adding cameras (we also use Odrive motor controllers instead of the custom micro driver), we figured that we should increase the gear reduction to provide more torque for greater payload.
We are not super Mech-E inclined, and would like to ask if anyone has and could share their experience/advice redesigning the gear train in the actuator module?
I believe the micro driver can handle up to 36V so what I would do is increase the supply voltage to 36V from 24V and increase the reduction ratio by 50%. This way you maintain the max velocity of the robot while increasing the torque by 50% - the losses in the gearbox. Meanwhile the reflected inertia and backdriveability might not suffer so much.
The robot is about 2.8kg if im not mistaken and a payload of 1kg should be ok. So at best with a 50% increase in motor torque you could expect 1.5 * (2.8 + 1) = 5.7kg lifted so your payload could go up to almost 2kg which is not so bad. What cameras do you plan to use?
Do you think raising the reduction ration to 1:13.5 could cause problems? Is anyone with the kit at hand willing to 3d print a larger pulley to test?
As soon as my kit arrives I will try this. I could also help with the design with topologically optimize the larger pulleys to minimize their inertia.