Gear box
 

Does anyone recognize this part? It is the back of the FIRST supplied gear housing. We have been running the drill and the atwood through it for about 2 and half weeks. Last night under a nonstress situation ( well for the robot not the operators who were in the middle of a demo for our unveiling) the bearing blew right through the side of it. Our guess is the plastic has been stressed for some time by the helical gear's transverse forces, but finnally let go. We picked up a replacement today (the advantage of shoveling all our snow to stay close to FIRST). We placed an Aluminum plate behind the casing and we believe this will solve the problem. Our concern is for rookie teams that may not have run much yet, will not discovered the problem until they get to the competition. We have notifyed FIRST and they are looking into the issue. But we thought we would drop a line into the forum since there is a very short time until shipping.

DBK
Team 134

whew, that looks bad . . especially for teams who are still planning on using them.

Thought people might want to see how we reinforced the gear box.

DBK