Chief Delphi - Motors for harvester

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Re: Motors for harvester

We ran 2 in compression too, with a 2 in roller. While we used two 16:1 banebots 550, it was way overkill. We actually ended up switching out our motors for our elevator for LA elims to one 16:1 banebots 550, and it was really perfect. I personally would have geared our pickup up a bit, because it seemed quite good, but not as effective as if we had made it faster. If you have the ability to make a custom gearbox, I think two 550s in a 8:1 or 10:1 gearbox would be perfect. If not, revert to 1 550 in a 16:1.

Re: Motors for harvester

Quote:

Originally Posted by MICHAELABICK (Post 1167124)

We ran 2 in compression too, with a 2 in roller. While we used two 16:1 banebots 550, it was way overkill. We actually ended up switching out our motors for our elevator for LA elims to one 16:1 banebots 550, and it was really perfect. I personally would have geared our pickup up a bit, because it seemed quite good, but not as effective as if we had made it faster. If you have the ability to make a custom gearbox, I think two 550s in a 8:1 or 10: gearbox would be perfect. If not, revert to 1 550 is a 16:1.

How did you keep it from getting jammed. Since we only had a one stage system it would get jammed when it got to the shooter. We are planning to run a two stage pick up system.

Re: Motors for harvester

I don't know how your harvester is set up, so this may or may not help. We made a single stage gearbox for a Fisher Price motor, then used chain drive to run a roller. The round urethane belting goes up to an idler roller at the top. Ball compression is kind of low at the bottom, maybe an inch, and increase as the balls go up, so they pop out the back at the top.

The gearbox was easy for us to make. We used an older FP gearbox first stage gear, and a 3/8" hex shaft with the ends machined round to fit into the flanged bearings. We just measured carefully and drilled the holes in the Lexan using a drill press. The ball moves about 4 feet up in about a second, which is what we designed it to do. To figure out the gear and chain ratios, we started with that one second time requirement, then figured the needed belt speed. We used that to figure out the gear and chain reduction needed to get the roller to spin that fast based on the no load RPM of the motor, allowing for about 20% speed reduction when it's run with load.

We had zero problems with the mechanism through two regionals.

Re: Motors for harvester

Quote:

Originally Posted by midway78224 (Post 1167127)

How did you keep it from getting jammed. Since we only had a one stage system it would get jammed when it got to the shooter. We are planning to run a two stage pick up system.

I'm not really sure what you mean. We ran two stages though, and balls never got jammed. If I had to do all of the gearboxes over again, I would go with 16:1 for the elevator(one 550) and 8:1 for the pickup(two 550s).

Re: Motors for harvester

Quote:

Originally Posted by midway78224 (Post 1167113)

How can we get the best linear speed. Whats the best ball squeeze. We have a 2 inch squeeze although it work well for us we could never hold more then 2 balls because it would jam. Any suggest.

If the linear speed of your harvester at the contact point matches or exceeds the max speed of your robot's drive, you should have no problems. We used a quarter inch to half inch of compression throughout our collector/conveyor system. Essentially what you want is enough compression that you can reliably grab balls, including within reason any balls with deformities, and no more. Any additional compression is just putting unnecessary load on your motors, which can stall them. This stalling of your motors could be what you are observing as jamming.

We ran the 180ish watt FPs with 1 16:1 planetary gearbox on them to drive our 2.5 inch diameter rollers. At about 1000 rpm free speed at 2.5 inches, it exceeded our robots max speed of about 10 ft/s.