[Andy Brockway]

This is nice compact design.

As far as supporting the motor shafts..... Place the gears as close to the plates as possible and no support is needed for the cim. The andymark reducer should not need support either based on how they are using it in their gearbox.

In fact, place all gears as close to the plates as possible to reduce deflection. As for your plates, it may be tough to find angle material that doesn't require that most is cut off on the short leg. If you have a source, I am interested. I have stayed with 1/4" on my main plates and my latest design has the motors up high like yours.

The nice thing about Inventor is it lets you draw anything, the next step is to think like a machinist and decide if pretty or functional is more important. We perform weight loss on our plates with the bandsaw and drill press after the gearbox is proven functional.

The season is almost here, I hope everyone has built something by now. The last thing we all want is robots that do not move on the field!