Offseason WCD with 3 CIM inverted transmission design

[Jared]

Originally Posted by asid61

I would highly recommend you do not cantaliever any gears. My second gearbox I designed, which we neglected to test this year under load and plopped right onto the WCD, had gear mating issues on the second stage gear because it was cantalievered.
Keep in mind this was with two bearings on it, one on the wheel block and one right next to the gear in the gearbox. The gear still had massive mating issues.
Instead, try putting the cims offset by 1/2" or so to allow for the gears to be inside the gearbox and have bearings on them on both sides.

I wouldn't worry about the cantilevered gears too much. We had problems when we cantilevered gears on our output shaft, but we had no issues cantilevering our 2nd stage of reduction (30t to 56t gears). The gears cantilevered on this gearbox are rotating quickly so they have less torque, and less force on the shafts than a cantilevered gear on the output shaft.

The only thing I'd worry about is the four gears (pinion, two idlers, and one more) that are engaged in a square. That center pinion might not fit in there. If it engages with one gear, the other gear may never line up. Unless you've designed for it, both gears that engage with the center pinion could always be slightly misaligned. A simple solution might be to replace one of the idler gears with the versa hub pattern with a smaller gear, so that the center pinion only engages with one gear.