Quote:
Originally Posted by Bryce Paputa
A dog shifter uses a dog gear to shift.
A pneumatic cylinder pushes this gear into corresponding slots on the actual output gears and when it engages the force is transferred through it into the output shaft. When not engaged the output gears just spin on bearings. I would take a look at wcp's dog shifter CAD to see exactly how this works. Ball shifters work similarly, however they use 3 ball bearings and a plunger instead of a dog. I personally would design a dog shifter first as, at least for me, is simpler to understand and fix. |
Going off this,
If you decide to pursue a ball-shifter, and aren't confident in your understanding it. I would recommend buying the vex-pro ball-shifter part and using it as a starting point for future iterations. The Vex-Pro piece is quite good for a COTS part, but there are many aspects of it that can be improved upon.
Note that *generally* dog-shifters require more force to shift, whereas a ballshifter is easier to shift.
Also, if this is going to be your first custom gearbox (I don't know if it is), it may be simpler to attempt a single-reduction 3-CIM gearbox. This way the gearbox becomes simpler to design and assemble, reducing the risk of error.