Incorporating the vex ball shifter into a WCD Drive
 

Since I had heard about the new line of vexpro products, it has gotten me thinking about all the ways that teams can incorporate these products into existing proven designs.

Does anybody know the best way for a team to utilize vex pro's ball shifter on a 6 Wheel 254 style West coast drive? I know that this ball shifter gearbox is enclosed, preventing the addition of internal drive sprockets. Are there any other ideas about how to make a cantilevered drop center 6/8 wheel drive?

Thanks, and I can't wait to hear the ingenuity of the chief Delphi community!

Re: Incorporating the vex ball shifter into a WCD Drive
 

973 is planning on going with the ball shifters this year, and adapting them to their WCD. After talking with Adam, he said he might post a paper on what they are doing some time before kickoff.

In the meantime, I've though about changing the 3rd stage. While they have the default output ratios, you could easily adapt their other gears to get a little bit more reasonable direct driving speed. Also, you probably want to make a custom waterjet mounting plate to mount the gearbox too. This will allow you to screw your bearing blocks into this plate, and make an easy, customized adaption to your frame.

On the other hand, I highly reccomend looking at the new WCP gearboxes.http: //wcproducts.net/wcp-00100/. RC said he will release the prices for them soon, and assuming they will compete with the new supershifter prices, it might be worth the extra money for drive gearboxes that is made for running a WCD.

Re: Incorporating the vex ball shifter into a WCD Drive
 

We will post a rough draft of our "Vexpro WCD" before the end of the weekend, and maybe follow up with a more refined setup before ship.

We are also heavily tempted by the WCP gearboxes. They are an iteration of our custom gearbox design, so they'd likely be a good fit into our designs.

Re: Incorporating the vex ball shifter into a WCD Drive
 

Wait, is there any reason why a ball-shifter with the right ratios would not work with a WCD?

Re: Incorporating the vex ball shifter into a WCD Drive
 

No,

I to want to do some designing with the Ball shifter on a WCD. I should be posting something withing a few days as well.

- Andrew

Re: Incorporating the vex ball shifter into a WCD Drive
 

The main problem is that there are no internal sprockets inside the gearbox to provide power to the front and back wheels.

Re: Incorporating the vex ball shifter into a WCD Drive
 

This isn't necessarily a problem, be creative. The solution we're posting in a few days isn't innovative or crazy at all.

Re: Incorporating the vex ball shifter into a WCD Drive
 

Based on calculations with the JVN Design Calculator and input from various sources, I can say without a shadow of a doubt, it will all depend on what you want to achieve.

That said, it looks to me as though a VEXPro Ball Shifter 2 stage will need an extra reduction to get it where you might want it with 4" wheels. Somewhere in the neighborhood of 26:15 or 28:16.

There is a version of the WCP that "should" work for direct drive and 4" wheels.
It is spec'd at 16.4:1 and 6.1:1.

Again, I am NOT an expert on this subject......yet. Please determine your needs and do your own calculations before you make a decision.

Re: Incorporating the vex ball shifter into a WCD Drive
 

I feel like you could just run a sprocket off of the shaft, then chain the front and back axles to it, then direct drive the middle wheel. As long as the sprockets have the same number of teeth, I do not think that there would be a problem with this.

Re: Incorporating the vex ball shifter into a WCD Drive
 

Last year we used supershifters on our WCD. We just made an adapter plate to mount the supershifter to our drive. If I were to run the Vex ball shifters this year I would mount in this same way.

Re: Incorporating the vex ball shifter into a WCD Drive
 

In 2011, Team RUSH (27) used 221's "Super Light Rolling Chassis" with the chains mounted outside the chassis perimeter. Would this work for you?

Re: Incorporating the vex ball shifter into a WCD Drive
 

The two stage version has that nice curve on the bottom, which looks like it would be nice especially with small wheels, but, at least in our wcd, we would need the 3rd stage which makes the whole package a lot harder to work with.

Re: Incorporating the vex ball shifter into a WCD Drive
 

Actually, using the JVN Design Calculator, the overall reduction should be between 15:1 and 7:1 so gearing down off the gearbox about 2:1 should result in those ratios which would be a good all around performing drivetrain!

Re: Incorporating the vex ball shifter into a WCD Drive
 

Remember: WCD chains the front and back wheels separately.

Re: Incorporating the vex ball shifter into a WCD Drive
 

I was thinking either two separate sprockets or one of those double-sprockets.