Compact LEGO® Limited Slip Differential idea скачать в хорошем качестве

Compact LEGO® Limited Slip Differential idea

A vehicle with two drive wheels has the problem that when turning a corner the drive wheels must rotate at different speeds to maintain traction - wheel that is traveling around the outside of the turning curve roll farther and faster than the other. Differential is great solution for that problem because it’s allowing the outer drive wheel to rotate faster than the inner drive wheel during a turn. However, it comes with one major drawback - limited traction under less than ideal conditions. For example when one wheel slips, or even worse loses contact with the ground entirely (not unusual for off-road vehicles), that wheel will receive the majority of the power (in the form of low-torque, high rpm rotation), while the contacting wheel will remain stationary with respect to the ground. In worst case scenario, this can cause entire vehicle to stop. Solution for that problem is Limited Slip Differential (LSD) for it prevents allocation of excessive power to one wheel and keeps both wheels in powered rotation. There are already different LEGO interpretations of LSD (my favourite is Sariel’s version: http://sariel.pl/2009/01/limited-slip... ) but they all need more space than I would like – limiting mechanism is built outside of the LEGO differential and as a result, they take much more space in a LEGO vehicle than the real LSD does in a real car. I was thinking about more compact solution, one that could allow usage of old style LEGO differential in a way that it acts like a LSD differential. You may already saw my first, unsuccessful idea:    • LEGO® Top fuel dragster, motorized and fas...   This was compact indeed, but completely wrong because it locked the semi-axles at the start (acting as solid axle) and gave possibility to open them only when they are not driven. (Limited Slip Differential should be open at start and locked only when one wheel slip occurs). Thanks to that failure and useful feedback from Eurobricks forum members, I came up with this solution. While both wheels have good contact to the ground and rotate in approximately equal speed, it acts like the regular, open differential. If one wheel starts to rotate faster than the other, semi-axels will shortly after lock to each other and act as a solid axle. The main advantage of this solution is compact size (as this was my original goal) and the main disadvantage is really limited independence of two semi-axles before they locks: angle of approximately 120⁰. Due to limited independence, semi-axles will lock even while turning – especially in longer turns to one side, but if you then turn to other directions semi-axles will unlock (of course, if you continue to drive in that other direction semi-axles will shortly lock again). Maybe it would be best to call it “Limited, Limited Slip Differential” or “Very Limited Slip Differential” ;) With its pros and cons, I find this solution best suited for compact off-road or even drifting vehicles.