[Jon Stratis]

Just wanted to add a personal story about grease in a gear box...

A number of years ago we were at competition and were picked by another team for eliminations before lunch on Saturday. Naturally, we were all excited when we went to eat... then someone from the other team found us and said "we need help".

One of our mentors spent the entire lunch hour rebuilding BOTH of their toughboxes, which had failed in their last match. When it came time to add grease, he asked the team for some. One of their students pulled out the grease tube, and proceeded to squirt some on to a Q-tip. No joke. Apparently, when they put together their old gearboxes, this was how they greased them up. Our mentor asked for the tube, and right in front of their horrified faces squirted half of it into the gearbox.


That said, it is possible to put too much grease into a gearbox. For example, a sealed planetary like you can get from BaneBots will likely have issues if you pack it completely full of grease. However, we've found that the toughbox and CIMple box both have enough places where gear will work its way out that it's not really a problem. When our drivetrain first goes together each year, we let it run for an hour or two with no load, just to help wear in the parts a bit (we find it helps stretch the chain and then it meshes better with the sprockets). We fully expect grease to work its way out of the gearbox when we do this! If it doesn't, then we didn't add enough.