Quote:
Originally Posted by Andrew Schreiber
The KOP Frame, KOP Transmissions. Read the instructions. No, I am not kidding. You can save a bit of weight by doing it all custom but since you already have an effective solution why not use it?
Build it week 1 and get people practicing. Work your kinks out early.
Fail Faster
Learn More
Focus and Execute
|
This method worked really well for my team this year. The kit base is highly underrated. It's not perfect, but it's a lot better than people seem to think. Having a working chassis with almost zero design time was
huge for us. There was only one major thing I felt was missing, and that was chain tension. Maybe we were doing something wrong, but we never could seem to make the chains happy; they were always too loose or too tight. One of our freshmen got really good with the chain breaker, because he had to use it daily
. If only the kit chassis had an integrated tensioner system, I'd try to use it every year.
Edit: The kit chassis does have a tensioner system, but I feel it's not implemented well. The mount bracket for the Toughboxes has slotted mounting holes, so you can pull it one way or another to tension chain. The problem is that if you do everything by the manual (standard 4WD), you'll have two chain runs coming from the Toughbox output shaft in opposite directions, so when you tighten one, you'll be loosening the other. You can get around that with some creative chain routing, but my point is that there isn't a really good tensioning system already integrated.
If I was trying to design the ultimate skid-steer drive, I'd make it somewhat like 254/968/27 style (West-coast drive), like 2
21's Universal Chassis. If my aim was anything less than "the ultimate skid-steer drive" (if I had limited resources, etc.), I'd go with the kit chassis, 6WD, dropped center (there's already a lowered hole for this in the kit chassis's side rails), and spend my design time creating a great tensioner system.
My $0.02