Vex Versaplanetary gearbox repair

[Dominick Ferone]

This was a before to show how the gearbox was resting.


Now after pulling apart the gearbox we made a few modifications.
This was the output shaft beforehand.


We made the grove deeper manually with a mini file and widened it slightly to make the snap ring want to glide back down if it were to pull up.

Along with it to try and prevent it from pulling up we tried having the lead screw be pushed down a little and add in some spacers, and switch out the lexan plate with aluminum in the hopes of preventing the lead screw from pulling the shaft in the first place.

If this plan doesn't work the next idea is to add in a spring system so it compresses a spring and bring the lead screw down an 1/8th of an inch instead of pulling the shaft up numerous times and forcing the snap ring down. Also we noticed the cim adapter wasn't flush with the motor so we shortened the output shaft a bit more to sit flatter in hopes of reducing any future failures.

We are open to other ideas to try, as we have a demo this weekend and if the snap ring fails again we will try other ideas next week.