New AndyMark Gearbox
 

Did Andymark release the name/details of their new gearbox? A naming contest and short description were given here http://www.andymark.com/Name-our-Gearbox-s/454.htm

It said they were revealing it at Championships.

Re: New AndyMark Gearbox
 

I've seen the new shifter and it is similar to the super shifter but it is lighter I believe.

Re: New AndyMark Gearbox
 

did you see it at champs or somewhere online, and do you know what they are going to call it

Re: New AndyMark Gearbox
 

Since you're on 45 I assume you have some insight that most of us wouldn't, but are the ratios similar/identical to what the SuperShifter provides?

I, for one, hope it's simply called "The Shifter" :]

Re: New AndyMark Gearbox
 

One shifter to rule them all, One shifter to find them,
One shifter to bring them all and in the darkness bind them
In the Land of Indiana where AndyMark lies."

:p

Re: New AndyMark Gearbox
 

Evidently it was on display at the Andy Mark booth all throughout Champs, and is called a "Sonic Shifter". Source - Andrew Lawrence's Facebook, specifically a comment from Andy Baker.

Re: New AndyMark Gearbox
 

Because my Facebook page is the most reliable source of news :rolleyes:

On the more serious side, Thanks a bunch to Andy for the quick response, and I myself cannot wait to see (and possibly use) the new shifter.

Re: New AndyMark Gearbox
 

Shifter, schmifter. I want a RAW box. :]

Re: New AndyMark Gearbox
 

seconded. I can't wait to get my hands of 4 of those...

Re: New AndyMark Gearbox
 

Does anyone know how it's servo shifting compares to the supershifters'?

Re: New AndyMark Gearbox
 

I'd be very interested to hear a firsthand account from someone who saw this. I'm personally wondering if it takes 6 CIMs.

Re: New AndyMark Gearbox
 

The one I saw didn't but you may be able to order a different plate that could have 3.

Re: New AndyMark Gearbox
 

I saw it on their table and it didn't appear to have the ability to mount 3 CIMs although I may be mistaken.

Re: New AndyMark Gearbox
 

I saw it at the booth but it is comparable to the super shifter in size and shape but lighter and servo shifting may or may not be available ;)

Re: New AndyMark Gearbox
 

It does not.

They had the pneumatic shifting set up at the table and it worked well. Hopefully, we can use it in the future.

Re: New AndyMark Gearbox
 

What possible use could you have for a 6CIM, 2-speed gearbox? Talk about overkill...

Re: New AndyMark Gearbox
 

Re: New AndyMark Gearbox
 

What kind of pneumatic shifter was the set up. Was it the pneumatic that comes with the super shifter now or the pancake pneumatic like on the vexpro shifters.

Re: New AndyMark Gearbox
 

Dunno. Personally, I want a robot that can hit 30FPS, but that may be a little much for 2 speeds. :p

Re: New AndyMark Gearbox
 

Perhaps I can persuade my team to sell enough lightbulbs or find a sponsor to support the purchase of a couple of these for testing. If that happens, I will study the prospect more closely. I was given to believe that the same ratios applied and that the major difference was the more linear shifting process. It was not a pancake shifter (like I saw on 254's gearbox with PTO). Here is a picture of the demo at the booth.

Re: New AndyMark Gearbox
 

I'm liking the simplicity of the box. Can't wait to see specifics and price!

Re: New AndyMark Gearbox
 

Awesome thanks for the picture. I have wanted to see what this thing would look like since i heard about it. If it is anything like the super shifter with a centralize shaft; It would work great on my team drivetrain setup. Might even work better then the one i design for this yrs. drivetrain.

Re: New AndyMark Gearbox
 

Just judging by the picture it doesn't seem all that different from the super shifter. Does anyone happen to know if and what the differences are from the super shifter aside from weight (apparently)?

Re: New AndyMark Gearbox
 

I visited the AM booth at CMP, to see this and other new products. The new shifter is about half an inch taller than the original SS, is left-right symmetrical, and allows for use of 17 tooth CIM pinions as an alternative to the 12 tooth pinions used on the original SS. The demo rig pictured in Bill_B's post illustrated very smooth shifting, and is fun to play with.

I still want a RAW box. :]

Re: New AndyMark Gearbox
 

For those of you who didn't know, AM released some more details on the "Sonic Shifter".
http://www.andymark.com/product-p/am...m_medium=email
As I am design a new practice drietrain, I am wondering if it would be possible to change the ratios so that the high ratio is around 4-4.5:1. I can't find details of 17 tooth CIM pinions used with it, or how that would change the ratio (what gear do they drive?).
Because we are using 4" (custom) wheels (in a WCD configuration) and want to directly drive one of them, sprockets aren't going to help. Is there another source for 20dp 14.5pa gears that I don't know about?

Anyway, some CAD would help;)

Re: New AndyMark Gearbox
 

4 Lbs, even with the cylinder? I know that it's made of aluminum, and should be a bit higher performance than a Vex Pro Shifter, but that kind of weight is hard to swallow.

Re: New AndyMark Gearbox
 

Those massive alum top and bottom pieces only seem to serve as a spacer? Can't they just be replaced with some standoffs?

Re: New AndyMark Gearbox
 

What I was thinking... also, are those the 20DP steel gears they are using?

Re: New AndyMark Gearbox
 

AM seems to use the steel gears in there stock boxes....

http://wcproducts.net/gears-20-dp/
WCP alum gears should be a direct drop in replacement and save a nice amount of weight, they also don't need to be heavily greased.

Re: New AndyMark Gearbox
 

I'm not sure it's that massive. If you look closely it's not just a flat piece, the center appears to be thin, so really it is just stand offs.

Re: New AndyMark Gearbox
 

I have to agree, it's really a shame Andymark doesn't make better use of polycarbonate or other materials in their gearboxes for weight reduction. Our team has made several polycarbonate frame gearboxes over the years and after using them for 3+ years a piece we find the gears wear out long before the frame does (Yes, they were greased).

Unfortunately custom gearboxes can be extremely resource intensive to build and so the past few years we've been using Andymark gearboxes (which don't get me wrong, work great, but are heavier than they really need to be IMO). =/

Re: New AndyMark Gearbox
 

This is the 17 tooth gear used in the sonic shifter. It is used on the cim motor.

Re: New AndyMark Gearbox
 

The first stage would become 35:17 instead of 40:12. Knowing that the second stage can be either 28:35 or 35:28, and the third stage can be either 48:17 or 45:20, you should be able to figure out the closest overal gear ratio to the range you're looking for. Play with some gear ratio numbers - it's fun.

Re: New AndyMark Gearbox
 

Perhaps I'm the only one that ever worries about this, but CIMs can and do overheat when they are run in back to back final matches with polycarbonate (or ABS for that matter) gearbox plates. We had problems with overheating in plastic gearboxes in our 2008 and 2010 robots. To this day, I'm still mildly surprised that so many teams ran the VP ball shifters with minimal overheating issues this year.

Re: New AndyMark Gearbox
 

A can of compressed air turned upside-down solves this problem relatively easily.

Re: New AndyMark Gearbox
 

You're not the only one. CIMs that get hot take a while to cool down again. Many people are surprised to learn that a CIM that is only warm to the touch on its surface can be really hot on the inside. A while ago I posted some data from fairly extreme testing of a CIM on one of my dynamometers. During that testing the CIM was mounted on wooden blocks, so that not much thermal conduction was available to cool it and no forced convection; during the test we maintained the dynamometer loading near the peak of the motor's power curve.

It is a very good thing that FRC events include mandatory time outs before and during the final matches -- these motors can take a lot of abuse, but they DO need time to cool off after being driven hard. And I really love seeing them driven hard. This year my team put three CIMs on each side of our drive train, and our coach told the driver to drive the wheels off the 'bot. Which he did. :)

Re: New AndyMark Gearbox
 

From someone who used Ball Shifters and other various Vexpro products this season and was left with a very sour taste, I'll suck up the slight weight difference to use them and not worry about my gearboxes possibly failing during elimination rounds.

Looks good AM, can't wait to use these!

Re: New AndyMark Gearbox
 

I wish it was a little more competitive with the Vex pro ball shifter price and weight but It looks good for the teams that stick to AM. It would be a good thing to spend the 450$ KOP coupon on.

Re: New AndyMark Gearbox
 

(emphasis mine)

I'm pretty sure AndyMark is capable of making a much lighter version of the sonic shifter--but not at this price+durability. Likely the bulk of the orders they get will be from teams that don't have particularly tight specs for drivetrain weight, or maybe don't spec drivetrain weight at all.

This type of talk is good, though. Hopefully all students leave FIRST thinking they can do a better job with design/build than (insert product here)!

Re: New AndyMark Gearbox
 

We've had bad luck with aluminum and polycarbonate. In a world of over-zealous students who don't understand tolerances and alignment, I'd much rather have something that's over-engineered and pretty much bullet proof. In fact, we replaced the front of every polycarbonate toughbox with aluminum because students over-tightened the fronts and shattered them.

Yeah, yeah, I know, our students should learn better. They usually do, after they mess up once. We joke that if we're within 1/16" of an inch then that's pretty darn good. AndyMark products can tolerate that and then some, which is why we love them.

Re: New AndyMark Gearbox
 

On another note, I love the milled down top and bottom plates, however that rules out drilling and tapping into those for bottom mounting. So, I really hope AndyMark offers a bracket like VexPro does to mount these. right now, the only 'easy' mounting method I see is face mounting for a west coast style drive.

Re: New AndyMark Gearbox
 

Or you could mount it like we always have.

See post 20! ;)

Re: New AndyMark Gearbox
 

For those of you concerned about the weight of the Sonic Shifter, There are some very 'easy' ways to pull some weight out - depending on which gear ratios you go with. Hypothetically, if you were to swap out the larger gears to their Aluminum Equivalents from WCP - specifically the 40T Cluster Gear, 48 or 45T Final Stage gear, and the 48T Output gear - you'd save yourself an 'easy' ~.5lbs per transmission. If you wanted to go deeper into the transmission, you can swap out the output shaft with an aluminum version and save yourself another .2lbs or so and the list goes on. There's also the possibility of being able to swap out both the upper and lower plates for a simple round spacer to save another few tenths of a pound, but without knowing the exact measurements, it's hard to say (IIRC, on the Super Shifter, swapping the 'case' out for (4) spacers saved something like .5lbs)....

In any case, the point here is that this transmission really isn't that heavy when compared to the VexPro Ball Shifter, which weighs in at 3.05lbs versus 3.50 for AM's sonic shifter pre-lightening. The bonus with AM's shifter is that with it being an AM product, many of it's internal parts are the same as what's found in their transmissions over the last 4-5 years, so in the off chance that you need a spare or want to play around with ratios, you've probably got what you need to make it happen.