[RoboTigers1796]

Originally Posted by Kevin Sevcik

Any appropriate gearing could still work. Banebots has still been reasonably prompt sending out part orders. While you're waiting to hear from other teams, i'd order a pair of the RS-395 mounting blocks and a pair of 4:1 and 5:1 pinions from banebots. You're likely to get those parts in time, and you can use them to make any P60 gearbox work for you.

Related question:
We were briefly looking at doing the same thing with either a cheap harbor freight screwdriver or a craftsman drill. The former had an all plastic geartrain, the latter had a metal final stage. So inquiring minds want to know: was your milwaukee gearbox all plastic or not?

Kevin,
The milwaukee gearbox had the last stage metal and the rest plastic, the new black and deckers we used have one plastic and the rest metal so hopefully it holds up better.

Originally Posted by fox46

I would try and rework the drill gearboxes. Do you have the output shafts supported in external bearings? Drill transmissions will not tolerate any kind of side load and will absolutely eat themselves from the inside out if you have the output shaft unsupported. You can only expect a drill gearbox to provide rotational torque. Side to side loading such as driving a belt or chain or roller with it without additional bearings is out of the question.

If however you are experiencing issues due to excessive torque then you could try using the slip clutch most drills have to limit the torque going through the gearbox.

I wish I had a box of BaneBot motors to give away but we are still waiting for some spares to come in for ourselves.

We believe the cantilevered shafts, as you pointed out, were the cause of the failure, we have replaced the gearboxes with new black and decker drill gearboxes and removed the chain system. Essentially the gearboxes are now direct driving the roller shafts (hopefully) curing our problem for good.

Thank you for all of the suggestions and ideas and a huge thank you to Nemo, who went out of his way to get in touch with our team in multiple ways to try to ensure we get them in time for our competition. We knew it wasn't a matter of if the CD community would help, only if it would be in time. Sure enough it would have but we explored other options and figured it out with new mockup gearboxes.
Thanks to all, especially Nemo and Team 967 for their gracious offer.