pic: Vex Face Bearing Gusset Gearbox

[Lil' Lavery]

Originally Posted by GeeTwo

There is no "top piece of VersaFrame" - the assembly above the single tube of VF is apparently composed of Bearing Gussets riveted together.

There are gussets bolted to another portion of 2x1" versa channel.

[GeeTwo]

Originally Posted by Lil' Lavery

There are gussets bolted to another portion of 2x1" versa channel.

Originally Posted by Han Solo, in Star Wars IV: A New Hope, upon recognizing the Death Star as not being a moon

I think you're right.

That's even more disturbing than what I thought I was looking at earlier, which was disturbing enough. What's the point of doing a VersaFrame "gearbox" with exposed gears if you have to cut out that many rectangular holes to allow gears to reach outside of the tube? For me at least, the answer is emphatically none.

[aldaeron]

Originally Posted by GeeTwo

That's even more disturbing than what I thought I was looking at earlier, which was disturbing enough. What's the point of doing a VersaFrame "gearbox" with exposed gears if you have to cut out that many rectangular holes to allow gears to reach outside of the tube? For me at least, the answer is emphatically none.

I never said this was a particularly efficient way of making a gearbox. It does involve a lot of cutting and drilling and clamping. If you want easy, buy something off the shelf - there is a lot of good stuff out there. I have a lot of younger students who LOVE clamping and drilling with the drill press.

The intention is for teams without access to a CNC to be able to make "custom" gearboxes. This is primarily an idea for my team - we used to have access to a CNC mill via a local makerspace, but it went out of business. Students used to enjoy designing and fabricating the gearboxes themselves. By "custom" I mean that the students can design the gearbox and select from more gear ratios than what Vexpro, AM and WCP offer as COTS. And if they make a mistake or are unhappy with the first iterations, the gears can be swapped.

[GeeTwo]

Originally Posted by aldaeron

I never said this was a particularly efficient way of making a gearbox. It does involve a lot of cutting and drilling and clamping. If you want easy, buy something off the shelf - there is a lot of good stuff out there. I have a lot of younger students who LOVE clamping and drilling with the drill press.

The intention is for teams without access to a CNC to be able to make "custom" gearboxes. This is primarily an idea for my team - we used to have access to a CNC mill via a local makerspace, but it went out of business. Students used to enjoy designing and fabricating the gearboxes themselves. By "custom" I mean that the students can design the gearbox and select from more gear ratios than what Vexpro, AM and WCP offer as COTS. And if they make a mistake or are unhappy with the first iterations, the gears can be swapped.

As always, your mileage may vary.

[Justin Montois]

Pretty cool!