Gear boxes and Drive Trains
 

Hey guys,
I'm a relatively young mentor on a very young team. We don't have very many mentors, and no one seems to know much about gear boxes or drive trains. We normally just use the KOP drive train. How ever, as we are going to attend an off season event, some of the kids were talking about upgrades we can do over the next few months. One of the mentioned changing our 4 cim drive train to a 6 cim drive train.

Maybe I'm not looking hard enough, but I can't seem to find anything anywhere about how to do this. This has also made me realize I know next to nothing about gear boxes.

So I guess I have 2 requests. Any sources that could help with a 6 cim drive train and any sources that might help me understand gear boxes more.

Thanks in advance!

Re: Gear boxes and Drive Trains
 

To learn about the gearboxes and other mechanical things, I suggest you look at 973's RAMP videos: https://www.youtube.com/user/973RAMP. I'm not sure there's anything specific on gearbox design for drivetrains, but all of the instructional videos are incredibly informational.

Assuming that you used a kit-bot frame this year, the easiest upgrade to 3 CIMs is this. Otherwise, there are quite a number of different COTS gearboxes that can be bought from either andymark or vexPro.

Re: Gear boxes and Drive Trains
 

When you say KOP Drive, are you talking about the KOP drive from the last few seasons, or the new/fancy one that was out for just this year?

We can offer better advice once we know that information.

Re: Gear boxes and Drive Trains
 

Assuming you are referring to the new AM14U kitbot, the VEX 3 CIM Ballshifter, and both WCP SS & DS Gearboxes can be added onto the chassis. We created a document here that goes through a step by step process on how to do this, as well as other upgrades such as wheel and belt swaps. All of the modifications can be done with just a cordless drill. Hopefully this helps you out.

Re: Gear boxes and Drive Trains
 

This year we used to the new fancy one, the last two years we used the c-channel that came with the KOP and cut it to the recommended sizes. Thats really about all the information I have, I didn't do much mechanical mentoring this year when our older mentors moved away.

Thank you to the people that linked things! I'm going to watch/read them when I get home from work.

Re: Gear boxes and Drive Trains
 

The above link from AlecS is what you want then.

Re: Gear boxes and Drive Trains
 

If you are looking to upgrade your drive-train for off season competitions, I would suggest this gearbox that andymark sells:

http://www.andymark.com/product-p/am-14u-tc.htm

The gearbox has the same hole pattern as the ToughBox mini and only costs 150 bucks!! Our team changed a reduction in order to achieve 13 fps instead of whatever came standard.

Team 4476 used this gearbox for the entire Arial Assist season and couldn't be happier with the gearbox.