Quote:
Originally Posted by philso
Be sure not to over-tighten the fasteners. Someone over-tightened the two screws holding the motor on one of the clamping gearboxes. The screws have a fairly small head and they completely "crushed" their way through the plastic. The motor popped off with very little effort.
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We also did that to one of ours. Also watch out for over tightening the bolts that clamp them to or go through the 2x1; although doing so didn't seem to stop the bolts from holding the gearbox in place, if you start spinning the nut it will strip out the hexagonal shape that holds it in place, making it nearly impossible to remove the bolt without destroying half of it to be able to get a wrench around the nut.
We also found that one of the clamping bearing blocks had the inside half crack into two pieces during Palmetto. I didn't notice any problems as a result of it though; we replaced it as soon as we noticed it had happened. I believe that this was one of the ones supporting a wheel (6" VEXpro mecanum, cantilevered out with about .75" of space between it and the bearing IIRC). I wouldn't be surprised if this was the result of something dumb we did though, these sorts of things always seem to end up being that way.
Other than those two issues though they've worked great for us. We used four three stage gearboxes (one plastic clamping gearbox, two plastic clamping bearing blocks each) on our drive-train. My only major complaint is that putting the holes in for the bolts going through the 2x1 tube is a real pain to do without putting the piece on the mill or drill press since the plastic pieces can't be used as a reference to drill through; this makes putting them onto an already assembled structure a pain, although this can be easily avoided with a bit of forethought and planning.