Redpower Frame motor - Faster than Inchworm drive systems

[Peppe]

For 6 axis movement inch worm makes a lot of sense, but if you know you want to go multiblocks in one direction they can be slow.

I remember seeing a fast and simple system to handle multiply moves in one direction quickly/smoothly.

I have been going over videos and while I've found some potential system I don't think they are exactly what i saw back in FTB beta.

Anyone know/seen other frame motor movement system other than the inchworm?

Candidate 1 (this may be it, but doesn't look familiar):

Candidate 2 (moves a little different, but think it is still an inchworm):

Candidate 3 (Reminded of the high speed system saw a while back):

 

[Peppe]

Inspired by that first centipede i came up with a design that could move in bulk, but used as little logic as possible.

Example using 6 motors, so it moves 5 blocks in smooth succession followed by a pause (controlled by the repeater). If you run with no repeater and your control is on the moving ship you have a very small window each loop to interact with the control lever

The logic is controlled by a simple cable loop that has each frame motor cutoff the path to the next -- panel strips are used to block the cable, so they move the ship one after they other with almost no gap.

Edit:
Refined design to be even simpler:

Spoiler

Pulse the first engine and all the remaining ones will move at max speed and return to their start position.

underside:

Old Images:

Spoiler

System off:

Lever activated:

From this state you can see the snake pattern of the power cable. Only the first motor will get power and then as soon as it moves the ship the blocks update and power goes underneath to the next motor.

Underneath:

Underneath snake side:

 

[Peppe]

Speed test:

Start position 0. Stopped race when last one crossed 40 block finish line.

Inch worm
40

2x drive
67

3x drive
75

4x drive
82

5x drive
87


Race setup:

Spoiler

Contestants:

10 check point

20 check point

30 check point

40 check point

Overall for the space it seems a 2x drive is the most efficient distance mover.

Math:

Inchworm 40 0%
2x 67 68%
3x 75 88%
4x 82 105%
5x 87 118%

 

[FavoriteFox]

I like the centipede drive. Not only is it faster than the inch worm drive and jumpdrive but I expect it will also be able to move large frames smoother. Each motor has to move the frame only one block so it is unlikely to run out of power and get stuck.

 

[Jacobblue34]

Which one is the centipede drive? Trying to find best way to move the frame quarry that im building off your videos Its so good...

 

[Peppe]

Candidate 1 was called centipede in its video if i recall. It is also the design i used in the speed tests -- though redesigned to only use red alloy wire in a snake pattern to replace all those state cells.

 

[the_j485]

To be honest, this is only really useful when overground and not mining, btu it's so much fun

 

[The Mobius Archives]

I'm going to need to build myself all of these.

 

[ilja]

Hi! Sorry for bumping an old thread, but thought it better than to create a completely new one on the same subject. Do you have any guide or instructions for building those engines? They always seem to get stuck for me, I've been trying for like 3 hours now.

Also, when you say the 2x engine is the most efficient, what do you mean? It seems as if the larger ones are quite a lot faster?

And on a side note, shouldn't the speed always be equal to the metres per cycle/motor movements per cycle? If you time them one second per motor movement, shouldn't an inchworm have a speed of 1m/2s (or .5m/s) while a 5 motor centipede should have a speed of 4m/5s (or .8 m/s)

 

[the_j485]

Hi! Sorry for bumping an old thread, but thought it better than to create a completely new one on the same subject. Do you have any guide or instructions for building those engines? They always seem to get stuck for me, I've been trying for like 3 hours now.

Also, when you say the 2x engine is the most efficient, what do you mean? It seems as if the larger ones are quite a lot faster?

And on a side note, shouldn't the speed always be equal to the metres per cycle/motor movements per cycle? If you time them one second per motor movement, shouldn't an inchworm have a speed of 1m/2s (or .5m/s) while a 5 motor centipede should have a speed of 4m/5s (or .8 m/s)

Firstly, building the motors: Have you checked that the motors are pointing the right way? you can tell by a little white spot on the texture on the front of the motors.

Well, efficiency isn't all about speed. He's also taking into account how much power each one uses.

I'm not sure what you meant by this third bit...

And no need to apologise, always happy to help, even if I am terrible at it

 

[ilja]

Yep, and rolling when I remove the frame below. I think I've got something stuck but can't seem to replicate it without stuff getting stuck. Well well, I'll experiment further and see if I can find something out. I've build inchworm drives without issues before, it's only this faster design I'm having issues with.

Ah, energy too. Didn't consider that. I usually build above ground where solar panels are easily accessible.

Well, what I mean is, shouldn't speed be easily calculable? The time it takes for a frame motor to revolve once is always the same. I don't know the exact time, think it's somewhere between .5 and .7 seconds, but for simplicity's sake let's say it's .5 seconds. Since drives operate in cycles between pushing the frames and pushing the motors (inchworm drives do it 1/1; first it moves the frames one meter, then it moves the motor one meter, then frames one meter etc), speed should be equal to (meters per cycle divided by motor revolution per cycle) divided by the time it takes for a motor to perform one revolution.

So
( m / r ) / t
where m is meters per cycle, r is revolutions per cycle and t is time per revolution. If time per revolution is .5 seconds, and it always take one revolution to bring all the motors back in line to start moving the frames again (as with the design in the first video in the OP), then speed is
( m / (m+1) ) /0.5

On an inchworm drive, it moves one meter for every two motor signals, so if it takes .5 seconds for a motor signal it should move (1/2)/.5 = 1 meter per second.
On the abovemost design, if it has four motors aimed at the frames and one for bringing the motors back, the speed would be (5/6)/.5 = 1.67 meters per second.
On the same design, with ten motors aimed at the frames and one for bringing motors back, it's (10/11)/.5 = 1.81 meters per seconds.

So there's clearly some pretty hefty diminishing returns, and the speed will never ever surpass two meters per second (it might in some way be possible to use a system of deployers and block breakers for that, but I'm not good at that sort of stuff and have NO idea if it's possible).

 

[the_j485]

yeah, you lost me with the physics and maths there...