Direct drive or Chain?

[Frank(Aflak)]

You saw my first post extolling the virtues of chain. Yes. That was before we actually built it. I don't like chain for these reasons now:
Heavy.
Dirty.
Prone to falls off.
inefficient
space consuming.
liable to jam.

First of all, in our drive system there were these stuffsi kan spel.)
2x 60 tooth sprockets
8x 10 tooth sprockets
2x 40 tooth sprockets
2x 45 tooth sprockets
2x 22 tooth clutch sprockets (big thingies that have built in friction clutch)
20 steel bearning blocks

all were 5/8th inch bore.
all was #35 chain.

so we had ungodly amounts of 5/8th inch shaft (heavy) lotsa large carbon steel sprockets (heavy even with holes in em) lotsa heavy steel chain, lotsa heavy steel bearing blocks.


and it was so inefficient and liable to jam . . . . . well, we fixed the jam part by locktite-ing everything where it was supposed to be, but still. Next year we are getting access to a good digital or CNC mill and making us a gearbox. actually we have several ideas for next year, but they all assume we will need a drivetrain at all. Which we probably will, but we will wait and see.

ooo, yes, I forgot space consuming. our bot was a box of 80/20, most of the innards were taken by our 4 motor drive system, while 45's drive system had 6 motors, but they kept it on one far end of the bot . . . hardly took any room at all. There is so much we learned this year. Its not even funny. And if thats not funny, there are lots of things that aren't even funnier . . .. nooo, no Catch22 here today.