Quote:
Originally Posted by magnets
I have some serious concerns about the strength of this swerve. To begin with, the 3/16th wall rotating module looks really weak, especially at the top corners. I'd be very concerned with this part "parallelogramming".
Secondly, your spring wave washer isn't going to be able to hold the bevel gear in the correct place axially, and you don't have a way to deal with bevel gear thrust loads.
Finally, you have a very weak bearing setup for axial loads on the rotating module. The lower of the three hex bearings will take all of the load, and will most certainly be destroyed.
Also, have you ever tried running a chain on a 16 tooth sprocket that spins at 5300 rpm? It's terrifying. There's a reason teams use gear reductions!
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I know about the 3/16" thickness. I'm changing it to 1/4", and I'm adding a couple spacers from McMaster for strength.
The wave washer diesn't actually take much load at all. Bevel gears are inclined to turn away from the axis of the mating bevel gear, so the wave washer just spaces it away when not driving. When driving, the bevel gear is forced against the inner race of the hex bearing.
Vex bevel gears have a small diameter boss on the back end which sit inside the diameter of the inner bearing race on the 3/8" hex bearings. If that actually becomes a conern, then it's easy to just add a thrust washer there. Can somebody explain why having the bevel gear boss on the bearing inner race won't work?
What do you suggest for the lower bearing? Keeping in mind that these are 3/8" hex bearings with a relatively large inner race, I'm not sure it will be a problem.
I did not consider chain speed. Thank you for pointing that out. Belts could actually be used in this application, so I'll switch to those. Alternatively, a cimple box or a vex 1-stage gearbox could do it too.
Most of these issues can be solved just by switching to non-coaxial.