Re: CIM-U-LATORS
 

All: I posted a CIM-U-LATOR CAD model here: http://www.chiefdelphi.com/media/papers/2444

Re: CIM-U-LATORS
 

Jared,

Thanks for posting the drawing.... We ordered them yesterday, not expecting to receive them until after ship.

Hope you guys have a great season!!!

Re: CIM-U-LATORS
 

So if you guys are so great, why did you as a mentor for an 8 year old team order not one, not two, but 20 P60s? Surely you could have built your own gearboxes, probably with one hand behind your back and going uphill both ways.

My point still stands. FIRST distributes four motors, with no gearboxes, no pinions, and the supplier is 10 - 15 days behind. The build season isn't exactly the time to be experimenting at building a gearbox. Many teams will learn to build gearboxes in the future, and many have put forth some great workarounds, but for many younger teams and rookies, the banebot problem is a major headache.

You need to remember that not every team has engineering mentors. Not everyone team has access to lots of cash to experiment with. Even with those, not every team has access to the tools needed to build a gearbox. Even using CAD for many teams is a challenge.

Re: CIM-U-LATORS
 

Off the bat, ten are for my the prototype for my senior project, I was taking advantage of the quantity discount.

The other 10 are split between our practice and comp bots, four each, and then two total spares.

We are using 775s in two distinctly different sytems. We are only using 4:1 p60s, and we're using them to interface with our spur gearboxes. We are a fan of a specific style of gearbox we make using COTS AM gears and shafts, to where we just waterjet/laser out plates and have zero fab after that. We can get any ratio from 2:1 to several hundred to one. We easily could have bought 60+tooth 32dp gears and directly interfaced with them, but we wanted to keep commonality between the two systems (the same p60 is a spare for system 1, and for system 2). The p60 option was more expensive, but the interchangeability is nice. We also chose p60 over AndyMark planetary because of the quantity involved and the cost.

Although this is horribly decision making process, the fact that I was already ordering 10 for my project, which meant a discount, did weigh in on the decision somewhat.

What I said still stands however, even with using p60s, every system on our robot has a custom gearbox. This is not because we are a "have" team (I still don't believe that, but because we decided to. The point I was making is that lack of resource is not a permanent affliction, it can be rectified easily. My team went from zero machining sponsors during the 2008 season, to nearly every machine shop in the SLO county sponsoring us in one way or form (that
s A LOT). This wasn't by accident, we made this happen.

I started out as a high school student with minimal knowledge, and I learned to make gearboxes during a season (without engineering mentors; I learned reading posts on this great site). I firmly believe a team of people can do the same thing, even with a hand drill and some material. Well, I am incorrect, not all teams can; only the teams that want it bad enough. 1726 made a hand made gearbox on one of their most dominant robots ever reusing gears from the FP transmission.

I also don't buy that CAD is a challenge for teams, especially for a single system. My students take the basic solidworks tutorials in a few hours, and then are capable of making several part assemblies. Sure it's not a 1000 part robot, but it's something.

FIRST did put these motors in the KOP, but the 395/540/550/775 motors are not banebots specific, they are industry standard which have been around for years, and there are a whole slew of gearboxes to support.



In Summary, boo hoo. The were speedbumps, don't complain, find a solution and move on. Every team that gives a darn is doing so.

Re: CIM-U-LATORS
 

Our CIM-U-LATORS haven't arrived yet, and the CAD on from a previous post as well as the pictures do not show whether or not the CIM-U-LATOR shaft has the same 2mm key as the regular CIM motors. Can any team who has a CIM-U-LATOR please tell us whether or not the shaft has a slot for a key.

Re: CIM-U-LATORS
 

quoted for truth

Re: CIM-U-LATORS
 

Yes. Same size key.

Re: CIM-U-LATORS
 

I hope one day, official FIRST game hints will give us a sneak peak as to what's included in the KOPs (minus game pieces) so that teams can decide ahead of time, what parts they might want to order and from whom.
I'm sure that would've alleviated to some extent the issue that many teams are having (getting items they want quickly), including BaneBots.

Re: CIM-U-LATORS
 

We got our CIMulators (for RS 775s) a few days ago and noticed a small but extremely important detail. If you are putting these into a CIMple box from AM, the bolts that go through the plastic into the face of the CIM (or now the CIMulator) are too long. On one end of the CIMulator they are fine, but on the other end they stick through to the pinion on the RS 775 shaft... So we happened to have lots of various lengths of 10-32s around (yay gold mine!), so it was no biggy, but if you don't you can probably just hacksaw the original ones down...

Need CIM-U-LATORS
 

Hey Folks,
It's Friday night and we just discovered that it's illegal to use 5 CIM's. We've built our robot and we are using 5 CIM's. Ahhhhh!

We thought 5 CIM's were legal. We have to ship our robot on Tues and we obviously can't get a replacement for the CIM before Tues. We're actually building two robots and after reading this thread, we're hoping to get a couple of CIM-U-LATORS prior to the Los Angeles Regional, March 24th.

Is there any one out there that might have a couple of CIM-U-LATORS they might sell us?

Thanks in advance for the help.

Re: Need CIM-U-LATORS
 

I wouldn't bet on it... Were I you guys, I'd be looking at using a FP or a 775 *pronto*.

And just keep in mind, as panic-inducing at this is, it's much better to find out now than when you get to your first Regional.

Re: Need CIM-U-LATORS
 

I would strongly suggest buying an AndyMark Planetary and putting the 2011 FP in it. It is nearly identical to a CIM in that setup in terms of speed and power. Plus the lead time is much less than the BB CIMulator.

Re: Need CIM-U-LATORS
 

What are the uses for the 5 motors?

One of them might be replaceable with an FP, or a Window...

Re: CIM-U-LATORS
 

We're using 4 of the CIMs for drivetrain motors and one for a worm drive based arm. The arm is pretty big and the CIM works like a champ. Last year the rules allowed 5 CIMs. Anyone know why they changed it?

And, if the CIM-U-LATOR or the Andy Mark planetary + FP work so much like the CIMs, why not just allow another CIM?

Re: CIM-U-LATORS
 

I strongly advise the FP + AM planet combo, it's as close a match in free speed and torque as any gearing setup you can get. It also requires the least amount of work possible (Saves some weight too!).

FIRST selects the kop methods through methods not exactly known to us, half tradition, half what is available is my best guess.