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Unread 29-10-2008, 23:46
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dtengineering dtengineering is offline
Teaching Teachers to Teach Tech
AKA: Jason Brett
no team (British Columbia FRC teams)
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Join Date: Jan 2005
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Location: Vancouver, BC
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Re: pic: FRC488 - 80/20 Drive Train

I'm not entirely convinced that this is either stronger or lighter than basing a drivetrain on the KOP frame from IFI, but I do appreciate its simplicity.

Mind you, I'm not counting on having that in the kit this year, and have come to expect something innovative each year from the Xbots in the way of an off-season drive system prototype/model. I also base my KoP drivetrain comments on our experiences with it, and our team has in-house access to mills and a TIG welder that allows us to do a fair bit of "hot-rodding" to it.

I do like how this simplifies the chain/belt tensioning. I would suggest adding a second block, inboard of the two outboard axle mounts that has a bolt hole drilled and tapped parallel to the frame rail and is mounted to the frame rail in a similar way to the axle mounts. This way a bolt run through the tapped hole could be used to press on the axle mount and tension the chain very carefully, then the axle mounts could be tightened. Once the appropriate location for the second block was determined, then it could be welded in place, and the tensioning bolt could be secured with a lock nut. This way even if the axle mounts' bolts were to come a little bit loose the chain would not come loose.

See you in Portland and (yes!) Seattle!

Jason
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