pic: 2012 FRC971 Transmission Actual

[roystur44]

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[steelerborn]

Really like this setup! You guys had a great bot this year!

Do you have an overall weight for the transmission? It looks very light weight, plus with AL gears.

[AllenGregoryIV]

This is a very nice looking gearbox.

How do you mount the two gears to the output of the CIM that allow you to do single reduction?

What is the part number/soruce for the pancake cylinder they seem really useful in this application.

[James Kuszmaul]

Originally Posted by AllenGregoryIV

How do you mount the two gears to the output of the CIM that allow you to do single reduction?

Not entirely sure what you are asking here, but the way the gears are mounted to the CIM shaft is by pressing a hex sleeve over the CIM shaft, then using the hex to mount the gears. If I remember correctly, then the smaller gear is 15 tooth, the larger is 30, and then the two gears in the second stage are 60 tooth and 45 tooth, respectively.

Originally Posted by AllenGregoryIV

What is the part number/soruce for the pancake cylinder they seem really useful in this application.

Bimba FO-020.3-3FMT

[AllenGregoryIV]

Originally Posted by James Kuszmaul

Not entirely sure what you are asking here, but the way the gears are mounted to the CIM shaft is by pressing a hex sleeve over the CIM shaft, then using the hex to mount the gears. If I remember correctly, then the smaller gear is 15 tooth, the larger is 30, and then the two gears in the second stage are 60 tooth and 45 tooth, respectively.

Bimba FO-020.3-3FMT

That's exactly what I was asking, thank you for the quick response.

[DampRobot]

If I were to design up a transmission like this, I would get a lot of flack from the programming leadership about not including space for an encoder. Did you end up including one that we can't see, or was there an argument for not including one?

[MichaelBick]

Originally Posted by DampRobot

If I were to design up a transmission like this, I would get a lot of flack from the programming leadership about not including space for an encoder. Did you end up including one that we can't see, or was there an argument for not including one?

Most teams who do WCD end up just connecting an encoder to another wheel(any of the front or back wheels) and then zip tying the encoder wire down to the bellypan. I can speak for 971 but I assume they did this too.

[Chris is me]

Originally Posted by MICHAELABICK

Most teams who do WCD end up just connecting an encoder to another wheel(any of the front or back wheels) and then zip tying the encoder wire down to the bellypan. I can speak for 971 but I assume they did this too.

971's drive wasn't a WCD, and since they used dead axles, I doubt this was the method they chose.

[Nick Lawrence]

This is actually beautiful.

Man, you guys make some of the nicest robots around.

-Nick

[kevincrispie]

Originally Posted by DampRobot

If I were to design up a transmission like this, I would get a lot of flack from the programming leadership about not including space for an encoder. Did you end up including one that we can't see, or was there an argument for not including one?

The encoders aren't part of the transmission. They are off on the back wheels on a plastic gear I believe.

[DampRobot]

Originally Posted by kevincrispie

The encoders aren't part of the transmission. They are off on the back wheels on a plastic gear I believe.

And just to be clear, did you ever end up using them? In my experience, they are often a pain to design in, and not that useful for the programming team.

[Cory]

Originally Posted by DampRobot

And just to be clear, did you ever end up using them? In my experience, they are often a pain to design in, and not that useful for the programming team.

Why do you find them to be not very useful?

[Garret]

And just to be clear, did you ever end up using them? In my experience, they are often a pain to design in, and not that useful for the programming team.

If you just use the AM encoder bracket for the E4P ts really straight forward to design them in; from memory I think its something like .75" out to each side and .1875" down for the mounting holes with respect to the shaft.

[R.C.]

Originally Posted by DampRobot

And just to be clear, did you ever end up using them? In my experience, they are often a pain to design in, and not that useful for the programming team.

Pretty easy to design in. Just drill a 1/4 hole and shove a s4 in. Literally no work at all.

-RC

[DampRobot]

Originally Posted by Cory

Why do you find them to be not very useful?

The theory always seems to be that they will get used for autonomous tracking or smoothing out driver control or something. Because the programming team seems to have so much trouble even getting basic functionality, they never end up getting used.

I don't mean that it's hard to design in two drilled holes. I mean that often both sides of the output shaft are used, so there is no easy place for an encoder.

Thanks for the tip about zip-tieing the encoder to the bellypan, and putting it on a wheel shaft. Wouldn't that cause them to rotate off axis?