Plastic Roller Chain
 

We were testing a roller claw idea and someone lost the chain breaker :eek:

We improvised and found that the VEX high strength chain worked as a drop in replacement for #35 roller chain.

After going through McMaster's plastic chain, the VEX chain is a real bargain if you need the weight loss.

We are now considering going all plastic parts on our roller claw. Have any others teams had problems/successes with plastic chain & sprockets ?

Re: Plastic Roller Chain
 

i would not recommend this, with only a 8-1 reduction on the vex kits i have broken that chain, it cannot handle any amount of torque.

Re: Plastic Roller Chain
 

I don't have much expiriance with the vex chains, but our team is going for timing blets this year. They are lighter and easier to work with.

Re: Plastic Roller Chain
 

If you are not using it for high torque areas of your robot than it should be fine. The HS chain from VEX has a tensile strength of 50 lbs.


It should not have broken for an 8-1 reduction seeing as you could lift your VEX robot with it - X2

Our prototype is all VEX, it worked fine even with the window motor installed.

Re: Plastic Roller Chain
 

...but don't expect to be able to load it WITH 50 lbs an not have it fail often. Find the definition of "Factor of safety" and use maybe 10 here. Also, compare that number with McMaster's spec on steel #35.

Re: Plastic Roller Chain
 

I know that VeX chain looks pretty beefy but one of the other Pudue area teams (1747-HBR) used plastic chain in the past and it really depends on how you use it. One year they had no problem but they were spinning a turret on it (hardly any load) but another year they broke it alot because they had some stress on it. Obviously it's nice because of the weight reduction but just keep in mind what sorts of things you intend on doing. Hope this can be helpful.

Re: Plastic Roller Chain
 

You're mixing up Vex's normal chain with the high strength chain.