[roboticWanderor]

OOO *rubs hands together* my favorite subject!!!
Dewalts can hande A TON of abuse, they are designed to be used in 12 v cordless drills, used by professionals and craftsmen world wide, designed to take abuses and stress beyond the capabilities of one robot.
Team 418 has been using dewalt transmissions for 4 years now, and never had the transmission itself fail. we initially followed the NBD paper to the letter, but recently have taken to doing some things of our own including:
- change from reaming the carrier to machining a plate to fit on the planetary pins
- the carrier plate allows us to save time by not having to sand down the gearbox housing to a certain depth, just trim the CIM shaft down!

These things are bulletproof as long as they are thoughtfully put together (use the right screws, lock tight etc.) and we an recommend them to any other team looking for a cheap and easy multi speed transmission.

2 speed shifting is smooth, but 3 speeds gets a little tricky... but we have never actually seen a need for the 3rd speed (12:1, 4:1, 3:1 not much difference)

mounting them could not be much easier, a securely tightened shaft collar clamped around the gearbox holds the entire assembly very well.

118's V6 with the dewalt was a very powerful and innovative system that took full advantage of the compact and strong multi speed transmission that the dewalt offered. im not sure what part of their drive train broke during LSR finals that year though, rumor has it that it was the V6 though. Pavan, care to fill us in?

as a last testament to the robustness of the dewalt, our team has used the same model dewalt drills for about 5-6 years now and never had anything go bad besides the battery, and these things are still working great!