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Originally Posted by JVN
It was called the CCT - "Crazy Chicken Transmission", designed by Paul Copioli, from Team 217 - The Thunderchickens.
John
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This design is interesting. How well did it preform? It's very very similar to the Toyota Prius ECVT as near as I can tell. I'm not an expert in drives---not even close. I recently read an article about the Prius and how it uses a plantary gear system with an additional motor to achieve a CVT.
I noticed that the documents you listed noted that a Patent application was pending. I'd take a look at the Prius system. Maybe Toyota owes the Thunder Chickes team some big dollars! That could finance a healthy FIRST team!
The major difference that I see (and again I'm not an expert) is that Toyota uses a generator in the same way the CCT uses an extra DC motor to control drive speed and distribute torque. In the CCT the extra motor seems to have significant loss (in terms of efficiency) through the second motor. In the Prius, the generator attempts ot recover this power and feeds it back into the batteries.
Also, another diffence is that Prius uses an internal combustion engine as the main drive motor. Can we have a V-8 on a FIRST robot? :-)
Anyway, thanks for all the input. AND THE CCT IS WAY COOL! Thanks!