AM Shifter Question
 

Would there be any problem with removing the high gear in an AM Shifter? It would be used to quickly engage and disengage the drive motor. Has anyone done this before?

I have not had access to our room to look at them and will not for some time so I figured I'd ask you guys. :)

Re: AM Shifter Question
 

not entirely sure on your reasoning for wanting to be able to shift into neutral, but I do know that as is, the AM shifters have a bit of a neutral zone already. so if you spent the time you could use servos to shift and figure out the neutral position

Re: AM Shifter Question
 

We experimented with it for our kicker in Breakaway to load a spring and it worked well. We didn't use during the season but not because it didn't work.

Re: AM Shifter Question
 

My former team, 1747, tried that for a 2010kicker as well, using a window motor... it was a spectacular failure, as it took 300lbs of force to disengage the dog. we then tried beveling the dogs, which wouldn't stay in gear. We ultimatly used this to engage and disengage the motor. Unlike other parts of that bot, The transmission worked well.

Re: AM Shifter Question
 

They will be used for our cart to allow us switch between driving it and pushing it basically on the fly. We're using the pneumatic shifting method as we will have other pneumatic features on our cart. (it has mecanums) :D

Re: AM Shifter Question
 

Octocanum :D Please octocanum.

Re: AM Shifter Question
 

For that, it should work fine. You could have a problem with using pneumatics because the system may not always be pressurized. Servos might work better because they would allow you to shift regardless of air pressure in the system, and shifting at seed will not be an issue. Just curious, will there be 2 cims per wheel? Because that would be pretty cool.

Re: AM Shifter Question
 

It's a possibility :]

Mike: The system will be pressurized when it's in use so that shouldn't be an issue. I'm not sure what parts we will have but whatever we have a full (or closest) set of we'll probably ending up using. We are good with servos, but our team seems to struggle with pneumatic's though so I'm pushing it.

Re: AM Shifter Question
 

Please come to a GTR event. I want to see this. :D

Re: AM Shifter Question
 

Consider using spring return cylinders. That way, when you lose pneumatics, the cylinders will automatically shift into neutral.

We have done the same when we wanted a transmission to shift into neutral. We tried it in 2010, but found we didn't like the drag on the kicker (the kicker had to spin the shaft to unroll our winch line).

Re: AM Shifter Question
 

Seconding the spring returns. I think you may be annoyed if you take the cart off the trailer and have to find a battery, boot the cart, and let it pressurize just to disengage the wheels (or you could disengage all 4 by hand, which probably involves sending someone under the cart) so you can get out of the 30 degree Michigan winter.

Re: AM Shifter Question
 

Yes, we're planning on using spring return mainly for safety. That way if something bad happens and we would have to cut power we could still move it or if there is a malfunction in the drive we could disengage the motor with a kill switch that would be on its own circuit.

Re: AM Shifter Question
 

We actually wanted to try this for this year's competition. We thought that having a neutral might be advantageous when balancing to allow our alliance partner to just push us up. We unfortunately decided to stay with all gears and didn't make a neutral. Although i would love to see how this turns out to see if it works (I don't see any reason why it wouldn't)

Re: AM Shifter Question
 

Shall do. As soon as it's done and all. I know CD would probably be interested in seeing the final project :)

(Should be done and have pictures (maybe even a video) on here sometime before next build season LOL)

Re: AM Shifter Question
 

Another question: does anyone know how much force a spring return cylinder for this shifter has when pressure is released?