The three major design updates of the gearbox, the inverse pneumatics, the new bearings, and the removal of the serpentine belt, have been in the works since mid '14. Mihir has done a great job figuring out the best way to do the pneumatics and incorporating the changes into a three stage for this years game.
Belts walk on the pulleys due to the spiral of tensile members, they're not perpendicular to the pulleys axis. The higher the tension in the belts the more they walk. This use to be a problem but as Mihir mentioned the tension can now be much lower. For this design the critical area is where the belts would run against each other, flanges may be required if we were to move them closer together. There are design rules about flanges in one of gates manuals. I'd have to look though them again to find which one. Either way the cim pulleys are double flanged properly constraining the belt.
This isn't actually the ideal belt configuration loading wise. However the ideal configuration has some manufacturing concerns that are currently being worked but not implemented yet. Things for the future.
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Originally Posted by Michael Hill
Also, I would argue that this isn't a gearbox until we can see the other side.
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Do you mean inside? You can already see all sides of the gearbox.