I don't feel my comments were out of line. Globe motor's can't take sideloads. They have a nice design, in fact, one of my design ideas was to have a wheel coming down on a set of wings to drive against robots on the HDPE. It ended up being shot down though
Using globe motors though was a bad idea, hopefully they can find a way to swap it with something else, chip, drill, fp.. The Globe's would work with a worm gear to stop the sideload but it looks like (from thier other picture) they have gears. Gears will create a massive sideload on the motor. The motor has a lot of torque, but can easily burn out. Being that they can't buy new one's and
MIGHT not be able to get spares from FIRST (Motor death due to design flaw that isn't being changed)
Quote:
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Many of the motors supplied in the kit of parts were not originally designed to be used as robot drive motors. The motor shafts on the drill and Globe motors were designed to provide axial torque only. They have very little ability to sustain side loads imposed on their motor shafts. Take care to securely fasten these motors and couple them with flexible couplings to the rest of the drive train when they are used for motive power.
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This is from the Robot Construction section of
The_Robot.pdf.
Thier globes do not have (again, from my perspective) a Flex. Coupling on them nor are they very securely mounted. I don't think the globe's will break
off but break
down.
I like thier overall design, but I do think there are flaws. I'd be willing to help them out at my regional, but they may not need it. I do hope to see them as a competitive force, but I don't want to see them fail because nobody pointed out a flaw. Maybe they have securly mounted the Globe beyond what I can see from the pictures provided. Maybe they will be a champ. Maybe they will be a powerhouse. I have no idea as I've never seen the robot drive. It's a nice design, with a flaw. Everyone's bot has a flaw, it would be naive to say one's doesn't. But many flaw's can be fixed, as I think is the case with their Globe's driving.