Quote:
Originally Posted by apalrd
And finally, any plan to remove the transmission in vehicle if you ever have to? It looks like it would be very, very difficult to work on anything inside the transmissions as it is now. Even though it would possibly weigh slightly more, you could pocket out the space of the transmission side plate that is integrated into the frame, and put another plate over it. The transmission would then be a single assembly bolted into a hole on the frame.
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This. I went back and forth over integrating the gearboxes in Scorpion this year, and eventually decided to make the gearbox have two independent plates, and a big pocket in the frame, like mentioned above. It was invaluable when we had to service one of the gearboxes at the Dallas regional. Because we built the gearboxes independently, we could bring a whole spare gearbox, and when a screw sheared on the dog shifter, we just pulled the broken one out and swapped in the spare. A 10 minute fix instead of possibly 30 minutes or more. And even if we hadn't had a spare, it's still much easier to work on a gearbox that's on a table than one buried inside a robot.
So, while integration looks nice and is a little lighter... design for maintenance is important! A little thought ahead of time can save valuable time in the heat of competition.