[xjschwen]

We are playing the FTC game this year and have blown out 4 of the Neverest 20 gearboxes. This was because the middle school teams did not set them to float at motor power 0.. W hen the motor power was set to zero the brake would come on and there was enough inertia in the shooter to trash the 20:1 gearboxes.

We took the gearboxes off and put an FTC motor collar directly on the spur gear.

So instead of attempting to gear up from 300 RPM to about 1800, we now start at 6000 RPM and gear down to 2000 RPM. We have a far better shooter than we had. The gear train is far simpler... less friction.. more reliable.

In 3 years of FTC we have burned out only 1 of these motors but have trashed many gear boxes.