pic: Fisher Price gearbox

[nixiebunny]

We need Kevin to weigh in, then we'll have five Forbeses on one thread. A new record!

[Akash Rastogi]

Originally Posted by nixiebunny

... five Forbeses on one thread. A new record!

There's no way this is safe.

[MrForbes]

Originally Posted by nixiebunny

We need Kevin to weigh in, then we'll have five Forbeses on one thread. A new record!

dude!


Anyways...interesting, we need to take apart the new FP transmission, and see what it's like, and also see how many old ones we have. I know we have two of the old white first stage gears, but we may need one more if we do what we were discussing last night for transmission for this year's robot.

We were planning on using a single stage FP motor/gear to drive the shooter, and a two stage to drive the collecting roller/conveyer.

[TheOtherGuy]

Originally Posted by nixiebunny

We need Kevin to weigh in, then we'll have five Forbeses on one thread. A new record!

Now why would I go and do a thing like that?

How many old FP gearboxes does 1726 have laying around? Perhaps we could borrow a gear...

[billbo911]

I love the simplicity of this design, and may copy, er em... use this idea if we find a need for it. I love re-using the parts already supplied to us.

My only concern is that shock loads might cause a bit more damage to the plastic gear in this configuration. When the full gear set is used, there will be less impact on this pinion/gear interface caused by shock loads, like the ball going through the shooter.

I know it's early, but have you seen any problems yet, or anticipate any?

[Chris is me]

In true 2791 fashion, we were considering copying the wisdom of the Forbes family. But we'll probably stick to the aluminium gear we got off of SDP-SI instead of the plastic FP gears, because we don't have any good FP transmissions lying around. Cons of being a younger team, oh well.

[WileyB-J]

Our team did a similar design, taking a FP blue gear; then putting it in a toughbox chassis. We bolted two 9013 motors to it and attached it to our prototype shooter. It sounded like a bloody circular saw and ran nearly as fast as one, here's the results:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/wileyb-...eam?likes_hd=1

As you can see, not quite the results of bolting a CIM to the shooter:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/wileyb-...n/photostream/

Oh well, time to make our own ratios/gearbox!

P.S one of the students destroyed it by running the motors reverse when it was at full speed! Snapped a 9013 shaft and ruined the plastic gear, oops!

[nixiebunny]

You don't need to use FP gearbox gears, apparently. I googled the fisher price pinion gear pitch and found a CD thread that says that the FP gear is 0.8mm module, which translates to 31.75 diametral pitch.

McMaster Carr sells 32 pitch nylon gears in useful sizes for cheap!

http://www.mcmaster.com/#plastic-gears/=fw31pg

We'll try this out.

[MrForbes]

neat! but they don't have the magical hex bore in them...

btw I found the gearbox from the original picture, it's in good shape still and we can swipe the gear and bearings and possibly the motor from it.

The wood spacer is really nifty....

[nixiebunny]

Wood is good.
TheR/C car world has a lot of 32p and .8mod gears available too.

[MrForbes]

old white, new orange. Different tooth count, too

[Richard Wallace]

I count 72 teeth on the orange driven gear (and 25 on its inner driver). Can anyone confirm?

Looks like the octagon hole could be drilled out to 3/8" and then broached hex fairly easily. A three jaw should locate center well enough, if my 72 count is correct.

[MrForbes]

We have a several of the old white first stage gears, so we decided to make a new gearbox for the 2012 robot. It is integrated with the shooter, the lexan panel it is mounted to will be the side panel of the shooter. We do need to make a new shaft, since the one shown here was fabricated in a prior year. The lexan plate that holds the motor and the hidden bearing was made tonight by students, using a 7/8" Forstner drill bit, and a small drill press. We just measured the gear spacing using a vernier caliper, laid it out carefully and drilled it. The motor is not really at tight fit in the hole, but it's good enough. If you have a way to ream or bore the hole to the proper size, that would be better. Note that this is the 2011 motor with it's 19 tooth pinion gear, not the 2012 motor.

The shooter wheel will be mounted on AM hubs, keyed to a 1/2" shaft, which will be bored to fit over the new transmission output shaft. We will probably use a roll pin or two to hold the shafts together.

[Tom I]

Originally Posted by squirrel

We have a several of the old white first stage gears, so we decided to make a new gearbox for the 2012 robot. It is integrated with the shooter, the lexan panel it is mounted to will be the side panel of the shooter. We do need to make a new shaft, since the one shown here was fabricated in a prior year. The lexan plate that holds the motor and the hidden bearing was made tonight by students, using a 7/8" Forstner drill bit, and a small drill press. We just measured the gear spacing using a vernier caliper, laid it out carefully and drilled it. The motor is not really at tight fit in the hole, but it's good enough. If you have a way to ream or bore the hole to the proper size, that would be better. Note that this is the 2011 motor with it's 19 tooth pinion gear, not the 2012 motor.

The shooter wheel will be mounted on AM hubs, keyed to a 1/2" shaft, which will be bored to fit over the new transmission output shaft. We will probably use a roll pin or two to hold the shafts together.

Very nice design! I will say my design is kinda parallelling this, but with 2 FP's and it's build into a piece of 1.25" C-channel. How did you pin the gear to the axle? just a roll pin?

Also, we had a 3/8" axle but found that if we tried to bore out a 1/2" shaft to fit around it to direct-drive it, we'd have a 1/16" wall around the circumference, which is relatively weak. Instead we bored out a 5/8" shaft and drilled out the center of our AM hubs to attach it to the throwing wheel. If you're worried about the strength of the 1/2" shaft, try that.