Fast Conveyor Belts
 

Hey everyone,

We've been using fisher price motors hooked up to the gearboxes from the KOP for our conveyor belts.

However, they are very slow and take up to 10 seconds to get a ball to the top of our lift.

What motors do you suggest using, and how would you suggest attaching them, to the lift?

We have 3 RS 775-18V's with CIM-U-LATORS, 2 Fisher Price motors, the provided Andymark motor from the KOP, Window Motors.

We also have two Modulox Beatboxes.

Suggestions?

Re: Fast Conveyor Belts
 

What is the diameter of your conveyor rollers?

Single belted or double belted?
(does the ball roll up one side or is it trapped between two belts)

Re: Fast Conveyor Belts
 

We're actually using TETRIX parts ( the ones from FTC )

We have a PVC cap in the fisher price gearbox, with a cotter pin through it to rotate. It's attached to an axle with goes through a sprocket that rotates "tetrix tank tread", which is essentially our conveyor.

I think the sprocket is about 3 in in diameter.

It's a single belt, pushed against a solid back.

Re: Fast Conveyor Belts
 

At Team 2345, we used two window motors that run a 8'' diameter "sticky" wheel with a deep groove cut into it to facilitate the orange cord you see in the video. The cord then runs to several 4'' diameter pulleys

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IE9j5TSII7M
(If the link doesnt work go to youtube and type in "FIRST Team 2345" video is under "FIRST Team 2345 KARS 2012 Ball Converyor Test")

Re: Fast Conveyor Belts
 

As a follow up, does Andy Mark (or anyone else for that matter) make alternative gear sets for use in the KOP Fisher Price gearboxes? We have the same issue and would like to increase our speed.

Thanks in advance.

Re: Fast Conveyor Belts
 

I do know that many teams have removed the final stage of the FP motor to get a significant increase in speed. They usually use a custom gearbox using the internals from the stock fisher price gearbox. (Though I've seen some modify stock gearboxes to make them work with less gears, with some success)

You could check the output speed of the window motors compared to the FP gearbox output. The window motor should have plenty of power for lifting balls with a straight drive from the output shaft as long as your belting isn't too tight. I'm just not sure you'll get all that much more speed out of it for the effort you'd go through to mount it instead of the FP.

Now if you happened to have an extra CIMple box or something else to do further reduction I'd recommend the CIM-u-lators.

Also, what is a Modulox Beatbox??:confused:

Re: Fast Conveyor Belts
 

Yes Andymark sells some, but none of them are in stock. I am told you can modify handheld drills to use their gearboxes with FIRST legal motors (other threads reference this). Or you could try to build your own gearbox; I don't really have any experience with this and my team is about 6 years old. You could order a P60 gearbox from Banebots, but expect it to take 2 weeks to get here.

Re: Fast Conveyor Belts
 

Just googled it:o , what reduction you get out of it?