2012 KOP Fisher price with AM Planetary Gearbox
 

Hello CD,
As far as I know the "AM Planetary Gearbox" is suitable to mounted on the Fisher Price motors from this year's kit (with the orange ring). I just wanted to know that for sure before we order some from AM.

Thanks,
Team 3083

Re: 2012 KOP Fisher price with AM Planetary Gearbox
 

Considering that they now sell an AM planetary gearbox with FPs installed I would have to say yes: http://www.andymark.com/product-p/am-0822.htm. I have never used these before however, and was wondering if it is possible to directly mount an fp to the gearbox (confused because it also says a cim will mount). It appears so, just want to check before spending $200 on two of them.

Re: 2012 KOP Fisher price with AM Planetary Gearbox
 

We had a gearbox on the AM-0822 lock up the other day. It was on our ball launcher and had just been powered down, but was still coasting at high speed. All of a sudden it just seized up completely.

Opening the gearbox revealed one of the 5 planetary gears totally fused to its shaft. It can't be turned or removed by hand. The only thing I can think of is that it was installed dry. The other 4 are fine.

I would strongly recommend that you open the boxes and make sure each planetary is well-lubricated. We didn't and paid the price.

Waiting to hear from Andy Mark.

Has anyone else run into this problem?

Re: 2012 KOP Fisher price with AM Planetary Gearbox
 

We saw something similar -- one of the planet gears got stuck, wouldn't spin. We popped it off with a tool, cleaned it up, re-lubed and re-assembled, and have been running it with no further problems.

Your advice about checking the lubrication is very good.

Oh, and like your team, we were using the AM planetary on a practice shooter wheel.

Re: 2012 KOP Fisher price with AM Planetary Gearbox
 

We just got in the mail our 4 planetary gearboxes. We hooked up one of our FP's and it was fine, worked well on our prototype, no problems. We then were free spinning our other gearboxes without the motors attached to them and noticed some small binding. Still haven't solved the problem but we took them apart to see if we cud fix anything to no avail. I will try removing the individual gears and re lubricating them and see if that solves the problem.

Re: 2012 KOP Fisher price with AM Planetary Gearbox
 

Squeaky and Richard,
Thanks for the quick replies. We were hesitant to pry the gear off, but either it is trashed beyond hope or it isn't, so we will pop it and see how it goes.

We really appreciate your feedback, since we were planning on running both motors this weekend and we haven't heard back from AndyMark yet.

Good luck the you boxes and with the rest of your season!

From team 1308!

Re: 2012 KOP Fisher price with AM Planetary Gearbox
 

Twice. Both times AndyMark replaced them.

Re: 2012 KOP Fisher price with AM Planetary Gearbox
 

Just got a package from Andy Mark. Three shafts with the 5 planetary gear posts, 6 new planetary gears, and 3 tubes of silicone grease!

They are out stock on the transmission, but we can easily rebuild our old one now. We will use 5 of the new gears but keep the old 4, which appear to be in great shape, as spares. And we now have two spare shafts for insurance.

We will tear down our other tranny, clean if up, and re-lube it. Hope things go well.

Thank you Andy Mark for fast customer service!

I hope they didn't have too many go bad. I did get the stuck pinion off. It got ugly but its bore and the shaft were already pretty ugly. The top of the pinion post looks mushroomed!

Bob,
Team 1308

Re: 2012 KOP Fisher price with AM Planetary Gearbox
 

We, too, have had problems with this gearbox. (See my previous thread). We've had four go bad and have decided not to trust them. Same problem. They were all well lubricated but planetary gears seized to their pins. At least two went within 10 minutes of powering them and under no load. Andymark did send us new output shafts and gears but do we really want one to seize in competition?

Re: 2012 KOP Fisher price with AM Planetary Gearbox
 

Yep, we tried the AM planetaries in our drivetrain, they aren't great for high speed, high load applications. One of the gears fused to the shaft. They worked great on our 2011 arm though, planetaries with gears as small as the AM ones just don't seem to work well for these applications in general.

Re: 2012 KOP Fisher price with AM Planetary Gearbox
 

Well, Andy Mark did a great job getting repair parts out to us (new five-pin shaft, gears, and lube), but after less than a minute, we had the gearbox lock up again. Same problem. One gear fused, but this time that gear's shaft ended up bent. We had thoroughly cleaned lubed everything very will with the lube they provided. We hadn't even shot a ball yet.

I think we have had enough. If we can't get them to last in practice, there is no way they will last through competition.

The CIMs, which we used very successfully in direct drive on the last ball shooter, are already spoken for. We don't want to redesign and modify at this point. Any suggestions for a reliable motor/box combo??

Re: 2012 KOP Fisher price with AM Planetary Gearbox
 

We had a similar experience which George C refers to previously.

We got a standard spur gear which mates with the AM one now on the FP motor. With an appropriate gear ratio, we will now drive our shooter this way and forget the planetary gearbox.

Re: 2012 KOP Fisher price with AM Planetary Gearbox
 

The Banebots RS-550 + a 4:1 reduction provide a speed close to the AM 9015 (am-0912) motor through the AM Planetary. We missed the AM Planetary when it was in stock both times, and as a result are resorting to the extra Banebots we have.

The 550's and the P60 gearboxes are quite reliable in my experience. (We used them for our arm and our roller claw last year).