Quote:
Originally posted by M. Krass
Sprockets allow more flexibility where changing ratios is concerned as all that is required is to change the sprockets and adjust the chain length. Chain, however, has the potential to skip teeth or fall off altogether. A tensioning system is a must.
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I agree with most of what you said, except for what you say about chain.
Chain doesn't fall off (unless it isn't tight enough), and unless you are using TINY chain, it doesn't skip teeth either.
Our drive is going to be wheels this year, but a tank tread could be done in the same manner:
We've got the Chips and the Drills combined in a gear box (1 gearbox per side). We have 2 speeds - Obviously this would work without the 2 speeds as well. In your gearbox you would use gears to slow the motors down and get more torque from them. If you are only going to have 1 final speed coming from your gearbox, you probably want to look in the area of 5fps or so.
Now, on the output shaft of the gearbox, we have 2 sprockets. One of them has chain connecting it to the rear wheel, the other has chain going to the rear. On the wheels themselves we have another sprocket, chain goes there.
We did something very similar to this last year, but our gearbox only had 1 speed. Not once did anything skip or fall off.
So I guess basically what I just said was that for your tank tread: treat it as if you're powering wheels, but obviously the wheels will be connected with the tread. And, it is probably a good idea to have both ends of the tread powered (the wheels at the front and back), because if you get in a pushing match, you dont want the tread to start skipping over the wheel that is powering it - by having 2, it is less likely to skip in both places at once.
Also, one thing that always seems to happen with tank tread people: They are not able to turn. Really the only thing people can do about this, is to make sure that their tank treads are able to slip sideways, so when they try to turn, the tread won't be able to hold them in place....
So, make sure your tread looks more like
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Rather than
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or
x
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x
Hope this all helps!