pic: NanoShifter
 

Re: pic: NanoShifter
 

This render is amazing

Re: pic: NanoShifter
 

AMAZING! :D That is just (insert word to majorly increase awesomeness)ing awesome!

How much does it weigh?
How stable is it?
When and where will I be able to get one?!

Re: pic: NanoShifter
 

If you could make the final ratio faster I imagine it'd be a cool / compact way to do a 4" wheel transmission. Gotta get rid of that mecanum wheel first though.

Re: pic: NanoShifter
 

If you went with 4" wheels, the standard AM shifter gears would work. I'm not sure it would make sense to do it though, if you did a 6 wheel drive you'd need 6 of these. May only make sense with Mecanums.

Re: pic: NanoShifter
 

The way I see it, depending on the weight of these things, and the do look light, one could use 6 of them, one per wheel, or at least 4 of them, 2 on each side, making a very powerful drivetrain.

Excellent gearboxes for mecanums, however I see a lot more use in these than mecanum wheels.

Re: pic: NanoShifter
 

If you used six, you would have to have six motors in your drivetrain. Also, if you used 2 on each side for a non-omidirectional drivetrain, you would save weight by simply using one transmission. The power would be the same since the motors supplying the power are the same as they would be with two gearboxes.

I agree that there are more uses for them than mecanum, they could be useful in swerve and omni-drives. But they could also be useful in non-drivetrain applications like shooters.

Re: pic: NanoShifter
 

If 2 of those weigh less than one of the standard transmissions, it'll be less weight no matter what. Plus, you gotta admit: Just by seeing it you wanna use it on a robot. :)

Re: pic: NanoShifter
 

A standard Nano weighs 4.8 lbs without motors. I can't imagine shifting ones weigh too much more.

A SuperShifter weighs 4 lbs. without motors and pneumatics.
AM Shifter weighs 3.4 lbs. without motors and Pneumatics.

I would just stick to the standard SuperShifters or AM Shifter.

Re: pic: NanoShifter
 

Fine, don't use the really cool greatly rendered awesome-sauce gearboxes. :|

Re: pic: NanoShifter
 

A ToughBox Nano weighs ~1.7 lbs...?

Were you thinking of a NanoTube?

Re: pic: NanoShifter
 

If designed right the additional weight going from a single to two motor gearbox is a little more plate, and an additional pinion gear; far less than a second set of gears.

Re: pic: NanoShifter
 

Haha. Good catch. I was indeed thinking of the Nano Tube

Re: pic: NanoShifter
 

First, amazing render. I don't think anyone here will ever get tired of these types of ideas, so don't feel the need to 'quit'. They're creative and are a spring board for a final product.

Any way the encoder can be re-incorporated into the gearbox?

It also appears that the inner races of the bearings on the last stage touch the inner races of the bearings in the housing. Would this cause a problem due to the difference in speed of each shifting gear?

Re: pic: NanoShifter
 

You have a good eye for detail. If this was real, I'd put a thin washer between the inner races like the bearings on the other side of the same shaft have.

The easiest place to put the encoder would be on the cluster shaft. This could cause a few problems - getting it to clear the CIM might be an issue, the speed might be too high for the encoder and you need to know for sure which way you were shifted.

That brings up another challenge - if 3 of the positions shifted and the 4th didn't you'd have a mismatch. If the shift position was detectable you could compensate the CIM speeds and get a "limp home" mode.

If the encoder didn't work on the clutster shaft, I'd probably try to change the shift cylinder setup so I had access to the end of the shaft (not sure what that would look like.)