Quote:
Originally Posted by Maxwell777
Has anyone done anything like this and do you think it is worth doing?
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It would be cool and fun to design, but probably not practical for an FRC game if used like an automatic transmission. Like other people have said, the field is too small to decrease travel time significantly.
Automotive automatic transmissions are used because of a narrow range of speed from the power source (engine) and a high range of output speeds. Electric drives typically don't use a shifting transmission because a motor produces torque from 0 RPM to a high RPM plus they can remove cost associated with a transmission and final drive.
I could see a 4 speed more useful in FRC if used like an ag tractor trasnsmission where different speeds are used for different tasks. For example:
speed 1 - power takeoff
speed 2 - ultra-low pushing gear/high precision driving (4 fps)
speed 3 - low gear for typical game play and acceleration (8 fps)
speed 4 - high gear for quickly travelling 60 feet (16 fps)