[ZZII 527]

Originally Posted by Billfred

At the risk of this being a bump post, I'd like to hear any other P80 stories teams may have. Is my fear of BaneBots unjustified?

We used four of the new P80s with a 9:1 ratio for a mecanum drive base. Very fast and zero problems. Axial alignment issues have been solved. Gears are much stronger. And most importantly, the final stage carrier is now a hardened steel. (I tested it to be ~C30 on the Rockwell scale. The old ones were so low they weren't even really on the C scale.)

They still need to be assembled carefully, broken in, and mounted well, of course. Here's a pic of our mounting setup:
http://web.mit.edu/scolton/www/bb.jpg
I'd want to do some careful analysis before using the higher (non-drive, greater than 16:1) ratios.

Last year I did a lot of testing with the old model and it convinced me that I'd probably rather have a gearbox with problems I understand than a new one I've never used. But overall the product line is much improved now. They've also uploaded much better drawings and support documentation. So definitely still useful for FIRST and other applications, IMO.