pic: Low Profile Gearbox Front View
 

Re: pic: Low Profile Gearbox Front View
 

How is this mounted to tubing? It looks like it's only using the bearing block bolts to hold the gearbox on.

Also, slight tidbit - the ability to use multiple pinion sizes is a design and feature of WCP gearboxes, not the VEX ones. The DS and SS are made by WCP. VEX and WCP are resellers of each other's products. Just clearing that up so that credit is given where credit is due.

Re: pic: Low Profile Gearbox Front View
 

What is the weight?
How thick are the side plates?
Are you using a custom or COTS shifting shaft? If so, which one?
How is this mounted?
Are the cims acting as nuts for the standoffs? If so, consider changing that to just nuts or pemnuts.
How are the shafts constrained? Are they hex turned to round?

That's all for now. I can't tell much from this view, but it looks pretty good.

Re: pic: Low Profile Gearbox Front View
 

I would assume since this gearbox is modeled like the WCP DS, that the bolts on the bottom part of the GB would go through the tube and bolt to it.

Re: pic: Low Profile Gearbox Front View
 

Nice design. I'm a little worried about how the chains or belts will make it out of the gearbox and to other wheels. It looks like they would go right into the lower standoff tubes.

Re: pic: Low Profile Gearbox Front View
 

Apart from the the bearing block, the two bottom bolts through the tube and bolt onto it, just like cash4587 said.

You are correct it is the DS and SS gearboxes that make the adjustable cim mounts but I am so used to using components from both that I tend to get them mixed up a lot.

Re: pic: Low Profile Gearbox Front View
 

As is the gearbox weighs about 11.2 pounds according to Solidworks. I made the side plates 1/4" thick. The Shifting output shaft I am using is the one COTS shifting shaft and is the same one the is used on the DS.

It is this one:
http://www.vexrobotics.com/217-3635.html

The shafts are 3/8" hex shaft turned to 3/8" round but I might possibly use 1/2" hex and turn that to 3/8" because there isn't much material to constrain the shaft against the bearing with the 3/8" hex shaft.

I am in fact using the cims as nuts but I am curious to know why there is a problem with this. Would it be a structural issue?

Re: pic: Low Profile Gearbox Front View
 

Not so much a structural issue as a maintenance one. It's a pain to have to remove the motors to disassemble the gearbox or to disassemble the gearbox to remove a motor.

Re: pic: Low Profile Gearbox Front View
 

What do you guys think of the gear ratios? Are they appropriate gear ratios for a 3 cim gearbox?

And also, Sanddrag, I hadn't noticed that the pulleys would hit the standoffs but I just raised the location of the standoffs to give enough clearance for the pulleys. Thanks for noticing that!

Re: pic: Low Profile Gearbox Front View
 

Yeah, we totally missed it through multiple design reviews on one of our gearboxes one year. Didn't catch it until assembly. We vowed to never repeat that oversight.

Re: pic: Low Profile Gearbox Front View
 

That's a nice shaft.
3/8" hex turned to 3/8" will work fine. Look at the new Thunderhex usage examples to see how small a shoulder you can use. Bearings are very high precision, and you will have about a 1/32" shoulder on six points to constrain it.
As stated above, it's a maintenance issue. If you lose a CIM somehow, then having to take off the gearbox and reassemble it is a no-no.

Re: pic: Low Profile Gearbox Front View
 

Under what conditions would one "lose a CIM"? In 10 seasons I have yet to experience a bad CIM or see one in person.

Re: pic: Low Profile Gearbox Front View
 

It's actually really difficult to just pull a CIM out of a gearbox without taking it apart. If you're using a 12 or 11 tooth pinion, the retaining ring on the CIM catches on the gear that the CIM pinion mates to. If you're using a 14 tooth gear, the pinion won't fit through the .755" hole for the CIM boss.

Also, if you did want to remove the CIM without disassembling the gearbox, I'd be willing to bet that the gearbox wouldn't just fall apart if one (or even all three) of the upper standoffs were removed.

If you wanted to disassemble a gearbox without removing a CIM, you'll have to remove one of the mounting bolts from each CIM. From experience, the CIMs don't fall out of the gearbox when this happens. They can't go anywhere because the one remaining bolt hold the CIM boss in a tightly fitting hole.

It looks like a solid design, and the gear ratios sound good too.

Re: pic: Low Profile Gearbox Front View
 

Are you using an odd size of retaining ring? I've never had this problem before with the ring catching on other gears, but maybe I've just been lucky.

Take one motor off at a time and add nuts where the motors used to be. Not that hard to do really, it just requires a little thought beforehand.

Re: pic: Low Profile Gearbox Front View
 

I have, just once. It was a brand new CIM in 2012. We weren't able to climb the bridge straight one match, so right after the match we felt all four CIMs, three were the standard moderately warm to touch, one was cold as if it hadn't been running (which it hadn't, we checked after removal).

While rare, it can happen so it's not a bad idea to design for CIM removal.

We managed to damage all 6 CIMs in our drivetrain at Waterloo last year. We were having issues with popping breakers, inconsistent performance and the CIMs getting very hot very quickly. When we removed each CIM from the gearbox we found their no load current was 7-10 amps versus 2-3 amps a stock CIM would have. Replacing all our CIMs fixed our issues.

Re: pic: Low Profile Gearbox Front View
 

It always happens to us. We can usually get it far enough out to wiggle it around the other gear, though.

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I have right now no less than four cims sitting my garage. I took them home because they were burning up and were no longer used on the team.
Some grease on the insides brought them back to life, but it is possible if they heat up too much.

Re: pic: Low Profile Gearbox Front View
 

Even though it is a lot harder to switch out cims, I'm still think I'm going to keep the cims where they are because chances are we won't burn a motor. As far as the cim pinions go, its doesn't require the gearbox take apart because I could just take it out and change it.

One thing that does concern me though is the ease of changing belts if they snap.

Re: pic: Low Profile Gearbox Front View
 

You have essentially guaranteed that you will now lose all of your cims during elims due to Murphy's Law.
But seriously, is it that hard to just add one more non-cim standoff? Two standoffs can hold your box together when swapping cims. In that situation, having through bolts to your cims is wise because it becomes easy to remove and add cims.

Re: pic: Low Profile Gearbox Front View
 

What precautions are you going to take to ensure that your 6 CIM drive doesn't completely die when it goes under 7 volts of battery during a pushing match or high acceleration and the PWMs cut out due to the new control system?

Re: pic: Low Profile Gearbox Front View
 

I'd guess that implementing low-voltage protection in code by either auto-downshifting at low speeds or decreasing pwm power as voltage approaches 7 would keep this from happening.

Still waiting on 234's full report to make a call on it.

Re: pic: Low Profile Gearbox Front View
 

Yeah I think we are going to make an automatic downshifting program but we will do more testing to see what works and what doesn't. Possibly a shift light on the driver station to know when to shift.

Re: pic: Low Profile Gearbox Front View
 

Sure, it isn't "hard". But why add any extra complexity to deal with a very rare case? Sure, you have a box of dead CIMs - but would the average 6-CIM team also have as many? Why not deal with it by ensuring less stress on the CIMs to begin with, which reduces complexity and increases reliability?

Re: pic: Low Profile Gearbox Front View
 

Does anyone know if its possible to use this with the WCP gearbox bearing block ( which is currently shown on this gearbox) and using Versablocks on the sides. In the versa blocks, the 1/8" drop is created by flipping the block around.

http://content.vexrobotics.com/vexpr...40122-Rev2.PDF

Based of the drawing, I am thinking I could make the center of the gearbox bearing block .940" from the bottom of the 2in tube and then use versablocks on the sides. Would this work?

Re: pic: Low Profile Gearbox Front View
 

Yeah that would work I'm sure.

Re: pic: Low Profile Gearbox Front View
 

Same here. It always catches, but I've never not been able to remove a CIM because of it.

Re: pic: Low Profile Gearbox Front View
 

Well, it isn't hard to add another standoff. You only need one more. It's a total of 0.05lbs on the robot extra. "Why not" is the question here.
It's good to ensure the safety of the cims OC, I'm just saying that's it's good to plan for the worst case. You can still plan for reliability and add a standoff to the gearbox too. Do both.