[MetalJacket]

Originally Posted by ekapalka

[I'm not a technical person, so I could be mistaken] If you have three CIMs on the same gearbox driving different sized gears, doesn't one of them (in this case the top one) have to be driven faster than the other two so that is isn't conflicting with the others?

Actually, believe it or not, you only need to switch the direction because the middle gear acts only as an idler. Lets say for the sake of argument (since I don't know off-hand the gears in this transmission) that each pinion is 12 teeth, the big gear being driven by two cims is 60 and the smaller gear being driven by the top cim is 36 (remember those aren't accurate). The ratio for the lower cims is straightforward - 60:12 = 5:1. For the other gear, it can kind of be looked at like a 2-stage reduction where the first stage is 36:12 and the second is 60:36. Multiply them together, the 36's go away and you end up with 60:12 or 5:1 just like the other two motors. Anyway, long story short, having the idler in there doesn't change the speed the top cim need to spin at.