[activemx]

Originally Posted by Veselin Kolev

My own experience has been interesting. The drill motor mount we used was on MVRT 115’s swivel drive this year. Made from 3/4 inch solid Lexan, the drill motor is pressed in, and pins in the Lexan that go into the holes in the front of the drill motor to keep it from rotating. Not that it would, it was quite a snug press. Then, this Lexan “adapter” was screwed onto the swivel drive, making it actually really quick and easy to replace drill motors, provided you had a press (we used a vice).

I would like to correct Veselin there, first off its not even concerned that the material was lexan because one of the students had picked it off from a machine shop scrap. Secondly it wasn’t very durable, first competition it worked ok but there were many issues like couple times the motors died or had to be replaced because the cable housing on the back of the motor came out. So we had to take the motor out from the block and had to put back the motor in plenty of times. Which caused it to pop out easily and it was real sloppy. Second competition one of the modules the plastic piece cracked in half so our mentor had to get spare part made out of aluminum and had three set screws to hold it in place. This solution seemed to work well.

All in all it was a good idea, nice and light, easy to maintain, never really failed. However, under unknown circumstances to me, one of these Lexan pieces broke. I highly doubt it was from running the motor, because it broke in the pits. Anyway, we had aluminum replacements, so we popped those on. Personally, I feel that these Lexan things were really good for their weight and size.

Its not a good idea to press fit a motor into pretty much anything. The aluminum block with setscrews held it in place though.