pic: WCP: AL Gears?

[R.C.]

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[Travis Covington]

Do you anticipate being able to support the potential demand?

[Tristan Lall]

Will you be selling pre-lightened versions of the gears? (Aluminum is light; holes are lighter!)

Just curious: are they 7075-T6, -T7 or something else?

Is there much wear of the dog mating surfaces after several hundred hard (e.g. pneumatic) shifts? I'm curious if it rounds off the edges on the aluminum dog gears. (Even if it does, it will likely be no trouble at all for most customers.)

[JesseK]

Oh boy, I've been waiting for COTS dog gear replacements...

Time to get that 3/8" hex broach.

[Aren Siekmeier]

These look awesome! Do I see correctly that these include the little nub around the hole to keep them away from bearings? The size selection will be nice too. I'm guessing mostly 3/8" hex on most of these? Are 35/45/48/60 only available with the dog cutout, or can they have keyed hole (hex or otherwise) as well? Can't wait to see these available!

[Chris is me]

Originally Posted by JesseK

Oh boy, I've been waiting for COTS dog gear replacements...

Time to get that 3/8" hex broach.

The gears should / will come pre-broached.

[Cory]

Originally Posted by Tristan Lall

Is there much wear of the dog mating surfaces after several hundred hard (e.g. pneumatic) shifts? I'm curious if it rounds off the edges on the aluminum dog gears. (Even if it does, it will likely be no trouble at all for most customers.)

The wear is insignificant, if not unnoticeable.

We shift with a 7075 dog on 4140/1144 steel gears with no wear whatsoever on the dog itself.

In 07 we had a 7075 dog on hard anodized 7075 gears and saw no wear on either the dog or dog gear.

[thefro526]

Only took you 3 years, RC.

I kid, I kid. <3

[Travis Covington]

Originally Posted by Cory

The wear is insignificant, if not unnoticeable.

We shift with a 7075 dog on 4140/1144 steel gears with no wear whatsoever on the dog itself.

In 07 we had a 7075 dog on hard anodized 7075 gears and saw no wear on either the dog or dog gear.

Edit: Regarding gear tooth wear, I would rephrase this and say the wear is likely noticable, but is negligible for the relatively short life that these robots have. Steel gears also wear, but since they are rarely coated, the amount of wear you notice during the year is likely minimal since it is hard to distinguish the worm material from the surrounding material. With a hard anodize, you will likely notice "more" wear due to the differences in color of the coating and the raw aluminum.

If others did/do notice what they would consider excessive wear, I would also ask that they objectively determine if it is causing any excessive backlash, efficiency changes, or is causing further wear more rapidly.

RC, a question for you. Are these gears cut with a modified addendum and dedendum to account for the build-up of the type III anodize?

[R.C.]

Originally Posted by Travis Covington

Do you anticipate being able to support the potential demand?

Travis, Tbh,

I feel a lot better after talking to AM, I have everything ready to go in order to ship these guys and I believe I have made enough for this year. First year in, so I don't know how much demand there truly will be. But provisions have been made to make more gears during season if needed.

The place I work at has an SL-30 lathe with a bar feed that normally runs lights out, as long as the OD is under 3" I can have blanks ready next day for the hob guy/shipped over night via Ontrac.

Originally Posted by Tristan Lall

Will you be selling pre-lightened versions of the gears? (Aluminum is light; holes are lighter!)

Just curious: are they 7075-T6, -T7 or something else?

Is there much wear of the dog mating surfaces after several hundred hard (e.g. pneumatic) shifts? I'm curious if it rounds off the edges on the aluminum dog gears. (Even if it does, it will likely be no trouble at all for most customers.)

Tristan, at first I really wanted to sell super pocketed gears, but the cost was too high for me when I had them made at work or any place around here. In the next year or two I am looking to do these inhouse and have them offered to FIRST teams, most likely the bigger gears such as the 40/45/48/50/60T pocketed.

All the gears are 7075-T6 and Cory/Travis are correct. The coating 1323/973 used last year wasn't that good, but the new coating is significantly better. It is similar to AM's 50T and when we used his 50T this year and last year for some high speed applications, that coating was very very good.

Originally Posted by compwiztobe

These look awesome! Do I see correctly that these include the little nub around the hole to keep them away from bearings? The size selection will be nice too. I'm guessing mostly 3/8" hex on most of these? Are 35/45/48/60 only available with the dog cutout, or can they have keyed hole (hex or otherwise) as well? Can't wait to see these available!

All gears have a nub that are plan bore. Gears will come in 3/8 or 1/2 Hex with a small protrusion. There are other dog "gears" planned, 40/50/55, this also depends on demand. The 45/60 dog gears allow for some very nice ratios for 4/6 inch wheels.

Current Lineup:

14T - CIM pinion - 3/8 Hex
15T - 3/8 Hex
28T - 3/8 Hex
30T - 3/8 Hex
35T - Dog Gear
45T - 3/8 Hex - 1/2 Hex - Dog Gear
48T - 1/2 Hex - Dog Gear
56T - 1/2 Hex (Cimple Box Gear)
60T - 3/8 Hex - 1/2 Hex - Dog Gear

Originally Posted by Travis Covington

RC, a question for you. Are these gears cut with a modified addendum and dedendum to account for the build-up of the type III anodize?

Travis,

I believe either you or Adam brought this up when we made our season gears last year. We did not do that last season, but this year after talking to the Ano/Gear place we have.

-The ano place, Nituff says ano should be .001 penetration and .001 build up. Normal range of build up is .0008 to .0012 according to the rep.

-The gear guy is compensating for that, I got a shop tour and talked to them about our application. They said they would cut a few gears, get them ano'd in house and then make sure it passes their QC, which is quite nice.

-RC

[Travis Covington]

Cool. Thanks for the info. Sounds like something we might have to consider this year.

[thefro526]

Originally Posted by R.C.

All gears have a nub that are plan bore. Gears will come in 3/8 or 1/2 Hex with a small protrusion. There are other dog "gears" planned, 40/50/55, this also depends on demand. The 45/60 dog gears allow for some very nice ratios for 4/6 inch wheels.

Just to expand on something RC said, and please forgive me if I'm overstepping in what I say but, there are a few gear ratios that will be available through WCP that aren't currently available through any other FRC supplier. Direct driving 4" wheels should become a trivial task with these gears - and will be possible with a 2-stage reduction vs. the current 3-stage reductions that many teams using COTS parts have to deal with.

Also, I'm not sure if RC has brought this up but, many of these gears will be drop in replacements for AM gears, so if you find yourself in need of an extra pound or two in the last week of build, keep WCP in mind.

[sanddrag]

Any idea what pricing is looking like?

[JesseK]

Originally Posted by Chris is me

The gears should / will come pre-broached.

That's understood, but it's for cluster gears sizes other than what they've listed. For example, if I wanted to go down from 48T to 45T on the large dog gear in the super shifter without changing plates, I'd need to go up from 15T to 18T on the corresponding cluster gear. This is just an example; really in the off season I'll probably play with some different ratios altogether.

THANK YOU!