OK-
Prior to the 05 season we buillt a protochassis with Dewalts on each of 4 wheels. When tested against our 2003 gearbox in a pushing contest they over-strained and popped out the breakers consistently. Likewise we ran the robot into a wall and found they popped out easily when the robot was forced to stall.
That and the approximate 20% reduction in speed wasn't worth changing the existing prototypes we have been using. Perhaps the term cumbersome was inaccurate because they are easy to pop in and such but we found they would be buried deep in the chassis and hard to get to under the upper deck.
Yes- it is nice to pop in a prebuilt gearbox, but they werent handling the strain we put on them. We still have them and I can visualize using them for non-drive train applications.
We have something new in the works for 2007- a little stronger and much lighter than the 03 or 06 machines. We didn't like the idea that some bots could trap us in the corner at times during the season so we designed a simple alternative.
WC
