Transmission Woes
 

Okay. . .I'll check up on this in a little bit.

Last night, we were running the robot's drive train while it was up on blocks. . . after running it for a bit, we managed to wreck a drill transmission. . .

Now, lots of things went wrong, I think, but I don't think any thing was significant enough to cause the transmission to die. . . But, what do I know? :)

So, here's the run down -

1. Stupid us forget to reverse the output of one of the motors because the gearing sort of, well, inverts their output direction. As a result, we had the drill motors and Chiaphua's fighting one another for a time.

2. The drive chains and the rest of the drive system has a lot of tension in it - too much, perhaps.

3. Finally, the free speed of the two motors is still slightly different, even after the reduction. The drill motor is in high, and thus at 1000 RPM. The Chiaphua was geared at 5.33:1, and is spinning at ~1100 RPM.

Any ideas? I didn't get in until 5 am, so I'm just getting set to head back and wrap my head around this.

If there's an obvious solution I can't see after being awake for 23 hours, please share :).

I think you probably figured it out with them running the wrong way (motors fighting against one another is the number one thing that will kill the gear box....particularly when they happen to be on other robots). I'd also try to loosen the tension on the drive train (I'm assuming you mean the chain; having that too tight will put a sideload on the drill motor/gearbox which is definately a bad thing). Also, make sure that there isn't too much friction in the drive train. If there is, reduce it to make the gear boxes last longer.

Matt

Thanks Matt . . .

As it turns out, the transmission slipped out of gear, and it ate one of the planetary gears for breakfast.

Knowing never to let that happen again, we're in good shape.

Unless you're shifting gears (I assume it was the drill transmission that shifted out of gear), I would definately recommend putting an O-ring in the drill transimision to lock the transmission into either high or low. The drill transmission shouldn't be able to slip out of gear then.

Matt