Breaking the First Helical Gearset Gearboxes!

[Jim]

Thanks to Team 537, Sussex WI for two valuable services rendered
1) Staging the mock competition yesterday for nearby teams. It was a blast and we are all glad that you do this! It helps remind us of all the organization that still needs to get done for a smooth work-flow at the real competitions

2) Trading us (Thanks Sami) the globe motor for your first helical gearset gearboxes. (Still checking on the availability of a spare victor 884) Thanks to your mock competition, we found at least ONE of our achille's heels.

WARNING TO ALL TEAMS USING THESE GEARBOXES:
We are using the set up as intended from FIRST with the DMs as the prime mover. In our case, one side of the box is mounted against a mounting plate. We blew out the bearing carrier on the unsupported side, TWICE (left side in one match, right side in another match).

We had done driver trials the day before and thought that after the first one let go, we must have started the crack the day before.

When the second one let go, we knew we had "issues". Real competition had found the weak link.

Our solution was to create a backing plate of aluminum with a small lip at the bottom. (Thanks to Loren and Heidi!)

The plate helps strengthen the box to the thrust load and the lip at the bottom helps with the force in that direction as the meshing gears try to move away from each other.

I will recommend tonight that we make more of these plates as a service to other teams.