Omni Wheels and Mecanum Wheels

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So I have a few questions

  1. What are the pros and cons of Omni Wheels vs Mecanum Wheels?

  2. Are stepper motors needed to drive these? Or do they just provide more control. I’d like to make a robot that is quick and lightweight. Both of those are not what comes to mind when I think stepper motors

  3. I want to drive the bot with a bluetooth RC controller, with an Arduino. So each 12v motor must be forward/reversible and controlled separately. I’ve seen some motor controllers on here but they only work with 2. Is there an Arduino compatible board somewhere you guys can recommend? I

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So to anyone who stumbles upon this in the future

  1. Omni-wheels are lighter, create “true” omni motion, and are cheaper

Mecanum wheels are easier to implement and provide more fowards/backwards power

  1. So far, regular dc motors seem fine, but I’ll update this if I learn otherwise

  2. Originally I was going to go 4-wheeled with the 2 boards in this kit http://www.robotshop.com/en/4wd-58mm-om … robot.html which would be an Arduino with with an IO Expansion Shield. After I decided to go 3-wheel, I planed on sticking with the same thing until I found out the RobotMarketPlace sells omniwheel mixers for both 3 and 4 wheels. http://www.robotmarketplace.com/products/RL-OMX3.html

So currently, the plan is to use the 3-wheeled omniwheel mixer. I’ll update this thread if anything changes.