pic: Found these on our quadrennium robot checkup

[mman1506]

loading photo ...

[donkehote]

Marcus, wahappen!

No lube?

[AndreaV]

Those toughbox nano's are from 2011, and the mecanum robot they are in is the school's favorite demo bot. It gets a lot of use, they probably needed more lube at some point.
RIP little pinions..

[ekapalka]

Originally Posted by AndreaV

Those toughbox nano's are from 2011, and the mecanum robot they are in is the school's favorite demo bot.
RIP little pinions..

Hmm... that's the exact situation as our mecanum robot... but we've never checked the gearboxes

[MrForbes]

Grease...regular maintenance....make it a way of life.

[mman1506]

Originally Posted by AndreaV

Those toughbox nano's are from 2011, and the mecanum robot they are in is the school's favorite demo bot. It gets a lot of use, they probably needed more lube at some point.
RIP little pinions..

Oh, I thought it was older than that. They were fairly well lubed after we rewired the robot last year but a lot of grit had collected in the open gear boxes. I'm going to chalk it up to all those joystick mashing grade 8's.

[BBray_T1296]

Once we assemble (and grease) a TB nano, we just run a strip of duct tape around the whole thing 2-3 times. "seals" the ends and keeps stuff out. Of course, it may be harder to remember to grease the boxes, as you can't visually check them easily

[Taylor]

Originally Posted by mman1506

Oh, I thought it was older than that. They were fairly well lubed after we rewired the robot last year but a lot of grit had collected in the open gear boxes. I'm going to chalk it up to all those joystick mashing grade 8's.

I believe the AndyMark nanotubes were first available for the 2011 season.

[IndySam]

Originally Posted by Taylor

I believe the AndyMark nanotubes were first available for the 2011 season.

We first used Nano's in Breakaway 2010

[donkehote]

Might be a good idea to put a grease fitting in the case if you guys want to keep using them long term. Just for the sake of maintenance.

[DampRobot]

We saw a similar problem in a WCP 11T pinion this offseason. It turned out that in our gearbox, the CIM itself was flexing around because we removed one of the spacers that held it in place. The flex created enough separation in the gears for the teeth to occasionally slip past each other, wearing the teeth over time. We replaced it with a new 11T and put the spacer back in, and never had problems again.

So, if you see tooth wear like this, it isn't necessarily a grease problem.

[Gregor]

Originally Posted by donkehote

Might be a good idea to put a grease fitting in the case if you guys want to keep using them long term. Just for the sake of maintenance.

1/16"-1/32" Lexan with velcro works well here. Weighs practically nothing and you can still visually inspect the gearboxes.

[mman1506]

Originally Posted by DampRobot

We saw a similar problem in a WCP 11T pinion this offseason. It turned out that in our gearbox, the CIM itself was flexing around because we removed one of the spacers that held it in place. The flex created enough separation in the gears for the teeth to occasionally slip past each other, wearing the teeth over time. We replaced it with a new 11T and put the spacer back in, and never had problems again.

So, if you see tooth wear like this, it isn't necessarily a grease problem.

I think running the mecanum wheels on hard floors put a lot of vibration into the shaft and did the same thing. We are using white lithium grease now which is easier to visually inspect. We might 3D print or CNC some end caps that look good.