WCP DS or Vexpro BS?

[BrendanB]

Originally Posted by Ronnie314

Last season we used the 3 cim BS from vexpro, we loved them. We really only have one complaint; over the course of the season, we noticed more and more sag. We DID have a cross support between both transmission also. It wasnt that big of a deal..until we noticed scrape marks on the bottom cim from dragging. But we are looking into the WCP 3 cim DS, what are peoples pluses and deltas? From when you first got them till after a full season.
-Ronnie

We used the 3 CIM Ball Shifters this year. We did make two small modifications after some issues we had last year that were quick during assembly. The first was we pinned the output shafts in after our experience last year with the loctite in the press fit failing and them falling off several times. The second was we put loctite on the screws that held the encoder standoff plates in. Last year we had them come loose overtime and by the time we noticed they ruined $100 worth of grayhill encoders. To access those screws you have to disassemble the whole gearbox which was something we never wanted to do after the robot went in the bag.

We also swapped the encoder gears for the replacement ones as the originals were slipping.

With those two modifications we've never had to touch them through six competitions and hours of demos and they have been the most reliable two speed gearboxes I have used.

I did notice some scrapping on the bottom CIMs however I don't believe it was caused by the gearbox sagging as the rest of our lexan bellypan (which sits lower than the CIM) is also covered in scratches. We did span between the gearboxes using some AndyMark Churro tube. Something to keep in mind is with a 3 CIM shifting gearboxes it is a lot more weight your are suspending off the side of your drivebase that can bend overtime and cause the sagging.

When we were originally deciding what to use we were debating between the WCP 3 CIM SS, WCP 2 CIM Shifters, and the VP 3 CIM Ball Shifters. We knew in a defensive game we wanted a high and low gear which eliminated the single speed. We liked the Ball Shifter because it was an enclosed unit and the final factor was the fact that the VP 3 CIM Ball Shifters were $50 cheaper than the WCP 2 CIM Shifters (which is why we weren't even considering the WCP 3 CIM Shifters). When purchasing over $1000 in gearboxes for two robots, saving a few hundred dollars was nice.