Cim-Sim gearbox for shooter questions

[RoboCat2005]

This could have already been discussed, but I could not find the thread for it. Any how, we are using a AM Cim-Sim gearbox on our shooter and had absolutely no luck with it at the Alamo regional, which changed our strategy to becoming defensive, which did pay off. Is anyone else using that set up for a shooter, and if so what are some tips/tricks that make it work.

Thank you for any advice or help.

[Kevin Sevcik]

We're using it and it worked well. I know a ton of teams are using it. What about it didn't work for you? I wish you'd posted yesterday, I would've stopped by your pits to help out.

[RoboCat2005]

Thanks Kevin, we were busy with everything and i didnt even think to, or find you. All we get is a launch of about a foot in front of the bot, and horrible lag of the motor when the ball is introduced into the hood which I think it a big issue to the problem.

[Kevin Sevcik]

I thought I snapped a picture of you guys. I've attached it here. I love the bump travesal sstem, by the way. Questions I can't answer from the pics:
How many and which motors into the CIM-sim?
How many and what diameter shooter wheels?
How much compression are you running? (How much space is there between the wheels and the hood?)
Are you running the motors at full speed when the ball dribbles out?
What, exactly, do ou mean by a horrible lag of the motor when a ball goes in?

[Ether]

This could have already been discussed, but I could not find the thread for it. Any how, we are using a AM Cim-Sim gearbox on our shooter and had absolutely no luck with it at the Alamo regional, which changed our strategy to becoming defensive, which did pay off. Is anyone else using that set up for a shooter, and if so what are some tips/tricks that make it work.

Thank you for any advice or help.

what motor(s) are you using ?

what size wheel ?

Jag or Vic ?

what's the total gear ratio from motor rpm to wheel rpm ?

are you running the system open loop or closed loop ?

how many amps are you pulling when the wheel is spun up to speed ? is this at 100% PWM or some lower value ?

[Chris Fultz]

We have a similar set=up, except we are pulling the ball from the bottom and shooting over the top.

We are using 2 CIM-sim's on our shooter. 2 FP and 2 AM motors total.
We are direct driving the wheel, so there is no speed reduction from the gearbox output.

We are running 2 8" AM hard plastic wheels, spaced about 2" apart. All is assembled as a single unit so all motors, gearboxes and wheels are linked with a single shaft.

We have about 2" of squeeze on the balls.

For shooting from the top of the key, i think we are running about 55% speed. Using Victors.

[RoboCat2005]

I thought I snapped a picture of you guys. I've attached it here. I love the bump travesal sstem, by the way. Questions I can't answer from the pics:
How many and which motors into the CIM-sim?
How many and what diameter shooter wheels?
How much compression are you running? (How much space is there between the wheels and the hood?)
Are you running the motors at full speed when the ball dribbles out?
What, exactly, do ou mean by a horrible lag of the motor when a ball goes in?

Thanks we worked hard on the system for getting over, we based it on the NASA Rocker Bogie system.
To answer the questions:
-2 Fisher Price motors
-Started with 6" now has a 4" in it
-With the 6" it had about an 1.5" almost 2" of compression, although it happens early and the exit is a little less then at the beginning.
-it bogs the motors down quite a bit as the ball drops in
-Each motor is hooked up to a jag each and the motors run at full speed when the ball is introduced.

[Ether]

Thanks we worked hard on the system for getting over, we based it on the NASA Rocker Bogie system.
To answer the questions:
-2 Fisher Price motors
-Started with 6" now has a 4" in it
-With the 6" it had about an 1.5" almost 2" of compression, although it happens early and the exit is a little less then at the beginning.
-it bogs the motors down quite a bit as the ball drops in
-Each motor is hooked up to a jag each and the motors run at full speed when the ball is introduced.

what Fisher Price motors are you using? there are 5 different legal FP motors this year

what is the gear ratio from motor rpm to wheel rpm ?

how fast is the wheel spinning ? -or- how many amps is the motor pulling ?

[Chris Fultz]

if i adjust for the different wheel sizes (8" vs 4") and speeds (55% vs 100%), we both have similar surfaces speed at the wheel, but we may be about 10% faster.

More importantly, we may have about twice the power input, depending on which FP motors you are using. The AMs are 180 watts and the FPs we have are 170, so we have almost 700 watts total.

[RoboCat2005]

what Fisher Price motors are you using? there are 5 different legal FP motors this year

what is the gear ratio from motor rpm to wheel rpm ?

how fast is the wheel spinning ? -or- how many amps is the motor pulling ?




-We are using the 2 new FP that were in this years kit.
-Gear ratio off of the output of the gear box is a little over 1:1, a 24 tooth sprocket on the gearbox to a 22 tooth on the wheel.
-honestly could not tell you how fast the wheel is spinning or the amperage.

[nitneylion452]

-We are using the 2 new FP that were in this years kit.
-Gear ratio off of the output of the gear box is a little over 1:1, a 24 tooth sprocket on the gearbox to a 22 tooth on the wheel.
-honestly could not tell you how fast the wheel is spinning or the amperage.

What is the reduction in the gearbox?

[Kevin Sevcik]

Thanks we worked hard on the system for getting over, we based it on the NASA Rocker Bogie system.
To answer the questions:
-2 Fisher Price motors
-Started with 6" now has a 4" in it
-With the 6" it had about an 1.5" almost 2" of compression, although it happens early and the exit is a little less then at the beginning.
-it bogs the motors down quite a bit as the ball drops in
-Each motor is hooked up to a jag each and the motors run at full speed when the ball is introduced.If you're only running about 0.5 to 1" of compression now, you really shouldn't be bogging those motors down, even if those are the weaker FPs. You really shouldn't be having problems if you have 0673 FPs. Do you have any guess how much current the motors are pulling when it's running without any balls? It should be something less than 10 amps. Anything more means you have some serious mechanical binding somewhere.

Frankly, your system looks like it should manage better than a foot or two. I'm leaning towards there being some significant mechanical resistance somewhere in your system. Your sprocket-chain connect there is a possibility. I'd also look at your bearing system for the axle of those shooter wheels and make sure you don't have any resistance anywhere. Some of my kids had a shaft collar rubbing against an aluminum retaining plate. It warmed up the shaft nicely and also slowed done the shooter a good bit.


I guess the other thing I would do is make sure both motors are actually running and pushing the shooter in the right direction. You can check that by unplugging one of the motors at a time and making sure the wheel still turns and in the correct direction.

EDIT: Now that I see you're runnig the new 170W FPs, you might as well swap those out for a pair of the BaneBots RS-550 motors. Those are 250ish watts but otherwise physically identical to the FP motors. That'll atleast give you a little more speed and torque.

[Ether]

-We are using the 2 new FP that were in this years kit.

I'll assume that means FP00968-9013

-Gear ratio off of the output of the gear box is a little over 1:1, a 24 tooth sprocket on the gearbox to a 22 tooth on the wheel.

Well, if everything was spinning freely with no friction,
16700 motor free rpm
5 gear reduction
0.917 gear reduction
3642 wheel free rpm
60.7 wheel free rev/sec
4.0 wheel diameter, inches
1.05 wheel circumference, feet

63.6 wheel tangential free speed, ft/sec

That ought to be plenty fast.

How tight is that chain ?

honestly could not tell you how fast the wheel is spinning or the amperage.

That's a critical piece of info to diagnose the problem from afar.

[RoboCat2005]

If you're only running about 0.5 to 1" of compression now, you really shouldn't be bogging those motors down, even if those are the weaker FPs. You really shouldn't be having problems if you have 0673 FPs. Do you have any guess how much current the motors are pulling when it's running without any balls? It should be something less than 10 amps. Anything more means you have some serious mechanical binding somewhere.

Frankly, your system looks like it should manage better than a foot or two. I'm leaning towards there being some significant mechanical resistance somewhere in your system. Your sprocket-chain connect there is a possibility. I'd also look at your bearing system for the axle of those shooter wheels and make sure you don't have any resistance anywhere. Some of my kids had a shaft collar rubbing against an aluminum retaining plate. It warmed up the shaft nicely and also slowed done the shooter a good bit.


I guess the other thing I would do is make sure both motors are actually running and pushing the shooter in the right direction. You can check that by unplugging one of the motors at a time and making sure the wheel still turns and in the correct direction.

EDIT: Now that I see you're runnig the new 170W FPs, you might as well swap those out for a pair of the BaneBots RS-550 motors. Those are 250ish watts but otherwise physically identical to the FP motors. That'll atleast give you a little more speed and torque.

As of right now the wheel and the sprocket set up spin extremely free and no binding in there, the motors are both spinning and in the right direction, weve checked that a lot. But pretty much as the ball drops in from the top the motors bog down and the ball just kind of flops out with no energy at all.

[Kevin Sevcik]

This is turning into a stumper. The only advantage the rest of us have over you is that our 6" and 8" wheels have more rotational inertia than your 4" wheel. So your 4" wheel doesn't store as much energy and more of the energy for the shot has to come from your motors.

This might explain everything, though. Your wheel would be losing most of its energy at the beginning when it's just pulling the ball and starting to compress. Then it's running slower through the high compression and you don't have enough compression afterward to make up for it. If you don't have good grip on your wheels, that'd likely make things even worse, wasting what little stored energy you have in friction while the wheels are slipping.

I think you'd probably be best off by increasing the grip on your wheels and trying to increase their rotational inertia. You can do that by increasing the mass or the diameter of the shooter wheel. Or both. Or by attaching a separate flywheel to your shooter axle somewhere it won't interfere with firing the ball.

[Kevin Sevcik]

Also, also, were you getting the same symptoms with the 6" wheels? Why'd you switch away from those? We're running:
- 2x -0673 FPs (~600W)
- CIM-SIM direct drive
- 2x 6" AM performance wheels
- ~1.5" compression

We're getting pretty good distance out of this setup, shooting from the key at about 70% drive on the motors.

[cgmv123]

Also, also, were you getting the same symptoms with the 6" wheels? Why'd you switch away from those? We're running:
- 2x -0673 FPs (~600W)
- CIM-SIM direct drive
- 2x 6" AM performance wheels
- ~1.5" compression

We're getting pretty good distance out of this setup, shooting from the key at about 70% drive on the motors.


2 9015's
2 CIM-Sims through 2 Gates belts with no reduction
4X 8" past KOP wheels
~1.5" compression
60° launch angle


It's working great for us. I think we need 50-60% to shoot from the key. We keep our gearboxes nice and greased. Grease would fly if you added anymore.

[RoboCat2005]

Also, also, were you getting the same symptoms with the 6" wheels? Why'd you switch away from those? We're running:
- 2x -0673 FPs (~600W)
- CIM-SIM direct drive
- 2x 6" AM performance wheels
- ~1.5" compression

We're getting pretty good distance out of this setup, shooting from the key at about 70% drive on the motors.

The 6" actually worked a little bit better then the 4", we switched to the 4" on Saturday morning to try it and it we actually took a step back. We had a mentor from the GatorZillas come over and he said we had way to much compression early, as in when the ball first hits, and not enough on exit; this was with the 6" in. So we tried switching to a smaller wheel to try to counter that. We cant just turn the hood around, otherwise we would have done that.

The 6" wheel is the AM white plastic hard wheel, and the 4" is the plastic one that was on the FIRST Choice list.

[Retired Starman]

Our team is using Cim-Sims with the 9015 motors, one on each gear box. But we have a shooter with two pairs of wheels with one gear box for each pair of wheels. The hood drag is too great in your design. The wheels may have sufficient linear velocity, but the the hood is keeping the ball from getting up to speed. In short, there probably is a lit of slippage of the wheels against the ball.

With our design, we have four 5 3/4 in diameter by 3/4 in. aluminum wheels in our shooter. Two disks to a axle. Once we spin up, the balls move through with very little decrease in speed of the wheels. We shoot 32 ft. with an arc 16 ft. high.

I'd look at ways to cut down on the drag in the hood.

Dr. Bob

Chairman's Award is not about building the robot. Every team builds a robot.

[Kevin Sevcik]

Your problem with the 6" wheels may have been too much compression too quickly. Your problem with the 4" wheels is definitely the lack of compression through most of your shooter. I understand that you can't flip the hood around or anything at this point. I think you still have options for increasing your exit compression now that you have 4" wheels. You need to make up a liner for the exit side of your hood. This can probably be a piece of lexan that fits inside the hood, and a few spacers made of wood or something that push the lexan away from the hood and closer to your wheel, increasing your compression. You might also benefit from friction tape on your wheels to make them grippier, and I still recommend a flywheel or heavier wheels so you can store up energy and your wheels can maintain a higher speed as the ball goes through.

[marccenter]

I don't think you will be able to swap your Andy-Mark 9015 motors (am-0912) for the Bane-Bot motors because the output shaft dimensions are different. I have both sitting in front of me and can see that the output shafts are different. The Bane Bot output shaft is significantly shorter in length. Note that the Bane-Bot 550's I have in hand have been recently ordered (new for 2012). YMMV (your mileage may vary).

I am also seconding Kevin's suggestion above for the additional flywheel on your bottom wheels. We added this on Saturday to produce significantly more ball spin. Cavaet - not fully tested.

[Kevin Sevcik]

I don't think you will be able to swap your Andy-Mark 9015 motors (am-0912) for the Bane-Bot motors because the output shaft dimensions are different. I have both sitting in front of me and can see that the output shafts are different. The Bane Bot output shaft is significantly shorter in length. Note that the Bane-Bot 550's I have in hand have been recently ordered (new for 2012). YMMV (your mileage may vary).

I am also seconding Kevin's suggestion above for the additional flywheel on your bottom wheels. We added this on Saturday to produce significantly more ball spin. Cavaet - not fully tested.How long to the shafts really need to be? Our -0673 shafts were way too long to easily get 100% engagement anyways. I think you could get the Banebots motors to work fairly easily.

[billbo911]

How long to the shafts really need to be? Our -0673 shafts were way too long to easily get 100% engagement anyways. I think you could get the Banebots motors to work fairly easily.

We are using 2 BB RS550s, Cim-Sim, 26:17 chain increase driving 2 8 in. wheels. We can easily shoot from the top of the key, and even sink the bottom basket while on the bridge.
The 550s easily have enough shaft to engage the pinions. The key is to mount them with a set screw or Loctite 609 retaining compound (or similar product), or both.

[RoboCat2005]

We are using 2 BB RS550s, Cim-Sim, 26:17 chain increase driving 2 8 in. wheels. We can easily shoot from the top of the key, and even sink the bottom basket while on the bridge.
The 550s easily have enough shaft to engage the pinions. The key is to mount them with a set screw or Loctite 609 retaining compound (or similar product), or both.

Is that 26:17 is that the teeth on each sprocket? and by what you have stated guessing it speeds is up to a decent speed? We had a 32 tooth to a 12 tooth speed increase and the best we could get was during autonomous, place the robot back wheels touching the free throw and could hit the front corner of the fender.

[RRLedford]

We have been using a Banebot Cim-U-lator with the dual 550 motor setup.
We have adjacent dual 8" AM gray urethane wheels on a 5/8" shaft with a 1:1 ratio 30 tooth pulley pair drive. The balls are pinched against a mostly flat 1/4" plywood sheet with its surface covered by high friction shelf liner.
The plywood is slightly bent at entry end to give a funnel shape. We have been able to shoot initially 40+ feet before we started having gearbox and/or motor troubles.

We did install spacers for maintaining airflow between the 550 motors and their gearboxes, using large 3/8" steel washers cut into a 4-lobe spider to match the vent & mount holes there.

We were initially burning up the 550 motors from a having a bad wire terminal connection arcing issue.

After that was fixed, we are still destroying the 550 bearing at the pinion gear end of the 550 shaft (two already). We broke in our gearboxes gradually before loading them, even changing grease after 1 hour.. They were running cool during the break in stage with everything spinning at full speed. Any ideas why motor bearing would self destruct so quickly -- 30 min to 90min of use and less than 100 shots?

We are converting today to the single 775 motor setup of the Cim-U-lator and testing for how much distance/RPM we lose from the fact that 775 is an 18V motor running at 12V. We can regear for more RPM if necessary, but we hope this larger motor can handle whatever the shaft loading issue is that is killing the 550 motor's front bearings. Any ideas why the 550 bearing nearest gearbox would be getting thoroughly chewed up so fast?

Which allowed AM motor(s) used this year with CIM-sim gearboxes are giving good distance for shooters?, and will any AM motors match up properly with the dual motor CIM-U-lator gearbox, as far as motor mounting and shaft diameter (in order to use same pinion gears as fit the 550 shaft)?

-Dick Ledford

[Dan_Karol]

Ok, so having had similar problems I think I can shed some light for you.

There are a few factors that go into the shooter:

Shooter wheel surface speed
Shooter intake compression
Shooter exit compression
shooter contact distance
Shooter Inertia


It sounds to me like with both the 6" and 4" wheels your surface speed should be about on target so I'm going to jump over this section.

From your description you say the intake to the shooter wheel has more compression then the exit. this causes almost all of the energy to go into compressing the ball very quickly in order to "suck" the ball down into your shooter. This expends a HUGE amount of energy on relatively non-productive areas. Our shooter has less then 0.5" of compression when the ball enters it and has about 1.5"-2" (depending on tilt angle and other factors). This setup has worked a lot better for us then constant compression at any distance (and we have tested it). I would suggest moving your shooter shaft forwards so the intake is looser and the exit is tighter. This is probably the simplest solution to your problem.

Because your shooter is almost 100deg you should have no issues with the contact time with the ball. If anything there may be to much here but I seriously doubt it.

After adjusting the shaft in the hood if your wheel still bogs down then this is probably the place to look. By increasing your inertia the shooter wheels wont take as much of a hit (and my team takes almost no hit) when a ball passes though the shooter helping whit your reliability, consistency, and range.

Hope this helps,
Dan

[Ether]

We have been using a Banebot Cim-U-lator with the dual 550 motor setup.
We have adjacent dual 8" AM gray urethane wheels on a 5/8" shaft with a 1:1 ratio 30 tooth pulley pair drive. The balls are pinched against a mostly flat 1/4" plywood sheet with its surface covered by high friction shelf liner.
The plywood is slightly bent at entry end to give a funnel shape. We have been able to shoot initially 40+ feet before we started having gearbox and/or motor troubles.

We did install spacers for maintaining airflow between the 550 motors and their gearboxes, using large 3/8" steel washers cut into a 4-lobe spider to match the vent & mount holes there.

we are still destroying the 550 bearing at the pinion gear end of the 550 shaft (two already).

Any ideas why motor bearing would self destruct so quickly -- 30 min to 90min of use and less than 100 shots?

Yes.

2.7 speed reduction on a 19300 rpm motor driving 8" wheels => high torque on pinion.

How much engagement was left of the pinion into the first-stage gear in the CIM-U-LATOR with those spacers?

[Ether]

...

May I ask, to whom are you responding? There's no context in your post, and you linked it to Dick Ledford's post to which it appears to be unrelated.

[Dan_Karol]

May I ask, to whom are you responding? There's no context in your post, and you linked it to Dick Ledford's post to which it appears to be unrelated.




My goal was to reply to the original was to reply to Catlin Level's questions. I haven't contributed to CD much over the past 9 and it appears I hit the wrong button.

Sorry for the confusion.

[John]

For RoboCat2005: Do the motors bog down as the ball drops from above, or when the ball exits the shooter?

If it is the first, then as others have said you have too much compression on the intake. So once you actually get to shoot, the wheels have already been slowed down. More inertia on the wheel might help by allowing you to maintain a decent speed after the ball enters, but it would be better if you could decrease the amount of compression on the intake.

PS: Looks like a really neat drivetrain. How often did you end up crossing the bump?

[Ether]

it appears I hit the wrong button

Ah. In each post, there's an icon in the lower right corner that says "quote". Click on that and it will automatically provide context (which you can redact as desired) and link your response to that post.

[RRLedford]

Yes.

2.7 speed reduction on a 19300 rpm motor driving 8" wheels => high torque on pinion.

How much engagement was left of the pinion into the first-stage gear in the CIM-U-LATOR with those spacers?




The gear overlap was still >80% since we pressed the pinion on less far down the shaft to anticipate this. I was kind of suspecting over-torque was the culprit. We have the option to do a 2:1 further reduction by going 15 to 30 with the belt pulley pair, but will even this be enough? We could also add a flywheel to reduce the level of braking torque that the squished ball effect applies to the motors. We can also add a 2nd gearbox driving the other side of the wheel shaft to divide the torque loading that the motors see a factor of two.

Any suggestions on what order woulf be best for trying these options?

-Dick Ledford

[Ether]

The gear overlap was still >80% since we pressed the pinion on less far down the shaft to anticipate this.

The cantilevered pinion would contribute somewhat to the stresses on the motor bearing.

Did you consider milling cooling grooves (https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-ycrtclEPlpY/Ty3FQ6JPGzI/AAAAAAAAABk/F4WV34gY_Qc/s800/IMAG0117.jpg) in the CIM-U-LATOR instead of using spacers?

http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/showpost.php?p=1120101

[Mr.Savagness]

We have a similar set=up, except we are pulling the ball from the bottom and shooting over the top.

We are using 2 CIM-sim's on our shooter. 2 FP and 2 AM motors total.
We are direct driving the wheel, so there is no speed reduction from the gearbox output.

We are running 2 8" AM hard plastic wheels, spaced about 2" apart. All is assembled as a single unit so all motors, gearboxes and wheels are linked with a single shaft.

We have about 2" of squeeze on the balls.

For shooting from the top of the key, i think we are running about 55% speed. Using Victors.
Isn't that a bit of an overkill? We are using 1 cim-u-lator with 1 banesbot motor and with only using a little under 70% power we are shooting around 52 feet.

[RRLedford]

The cantilevered pinion would contribute somewhat to the stresses on the motor bearing.

Did you consider milling cooling grooves (https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-ycrtclEPlpY/Ty3FQ6JPGzI/AAAAAAAAABk/F4WV34gY_Qc/s800/IMAG0117.jpg) in the CIM-U-LATOR instead of using spacers?

http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/showpost.php?p=1120101




Yes, I just got the 9mm ball end mill to di this, but meanwhile we switched over to using the single motor version of the CIM-U-lator with the 18V 775 motor.
Distance is not quite as good, but it seems to bedoing better at handling force on the pinion bearing end of the motor. We can also boost RPM 7% by going from 30-to-30 with the belt pulleys to 30-to-28.

Thanks.

-Dick Ledford