Quote:
Originally Posted by sdcantrell56
Properly set up, you should never break a chain.
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We used chain on our mecanum system because we were afraid what the humps would do to direct-drive transmissions this year and wanted to displace some of that abuse through chain, and we also chained the mecanum wheels to raised traction wheels for hump-transversal assist...
We had no problems at FLR, but at Championship managed to shear -- that's right, I said shear -- four master links. On four separate chains.
We think it was due to abuse on the Andymark pylons -- they were only aluminum, after all, and small deformations can pop things out of alignment. But shearing masterlinks, that was pretty impressive. We're not *sure* why, and the consistency of it happening on four separate chains is particularly confusing, but we're blaming aluminum abuse for now. (Perhaps a summer diagnostic project is in order.)
A few years ago we went direct-drive off of AM 12:1 planetaries, and it held up very well in a very abusive competition. We'll consider it again, I can assure you.