jirwin82 said:
I can see the issues you brought up with the axles searing off with a single shaft motor. I would definitely put suspension springs, shocks, ect... Maybe cambered wheels would help in strenghth and stability in that type of design also?
camber will increase the stress on the axles. but it will help with stability, giving a wider weheelbase for the same axle width. however it reduces the space between the tires at the top, so less space for the user.
if the axles are thick enough for the weight on them and the impact forces (whcih basically increase the weight on the stress points, dependingo n the g-force created during impact), then they won't break. the problem is usually the desing of the axle, since most are made as sharply stepped sections, and the sharp steps are stress risers focusing the stress along the sharp corner. making those all rounded helps fix that.
I was also thinking about welding forks on to use regular bike hub motors?
that will be stronger with the axles supported on both sides.
For steering what I had in mind would be individual controlers and throttles so it would steer like a zero turn radius lawnmower or tank.
that works well at lower speeds. at higher speeds you have to compensate for the reaction time either by learning it yoruself or by using a comptuer or analaog circtuit to do it for you. you'd have to design and tune that experimentally, most likely, unless you can figure out the math fo fr determining the problem and the anser. might nto turn out to be a big deal, but i suspect on that shrot a wheelbase it'll be qutie a prblem over just a few mph.
others have built hotrod wheelcharsi and powercharis os you could google search for those and see if any of them show or tell how they dealt with it, or if ti was a problem, depending ont he speds they went.
at slow speed it's totally normal to steer wieht the wheels; peope do it with handpowered ones quite easily, and powerhcaris just about all use individually contorlled mtoros for each large wheel, soemties on teh small ones too, though its usually ajoystick for one-handed fairly rpeceise steering on those, depending on the input abiltyies of the oeprator.