Gears or chain and sprockets?

[nonother]

Our team's experience with using chain and sprocket for drive trains is that it is disasterous. The amount of tension present causes one of two problems. The first is the chains simply snap. This could probably be remedied with doubling up chains. The second scenario that is far more troubling is the chains loosen eventually and so the amount of tension is reduced. When the gears spin the amount of tension on each side of the gears is not equal and so the difference in tension then causes the chain to snap. This seems to happen even when doubling up. Bottom line - if the situation requires high torque or has a lot of stress on it avoid chain and sprockets.

On another note - gears are hardly impervious. I've seen them snap, which just confirms my belief they should have made them out of metal. So if there is going to be a lot of stress on the setup, double up all of the gears.

[fredliu168]

thanks,

after much consideration, our team decided to gear the drive train and use chains/gears for the arm lift

[artdutra04]

Originally Posted by nonother

Our team's experience with using chain and sprocket for drive trains is that it is disasterous. The amount of tension present causes one of two problems. The first is the chains simply snap. This could probably be remedied with doubling up chains. The second scenario that is far more troubling is the chains loosen eventually and so the amount of tension is reduced. When the gears spin the amount of tension on each side of the gears is not equal and so the difference in tension then causes the chain to snap. This seems to happen even when doubling up. Bottom line - if the situation requires high torque or has a lot of stress on it avoid chain and sprockets.

On another note - gears are hardly impervious. I've seen them snap, which just confirms my belief they should have made them out of metal. So if there is going to be a lot of stress on the setup, double up all of the gears.

The Vex chain is plenty strong enough, as long as it is tensioned properly. If your chain is too tight or too loose, it will snap much easier.

FVC 228 (formerly FVC 59) last year used Vex chain for driving their robot, and they did not have any problems with it breaking. Over the course of two competitions (in which they placed 2nd in both) they only broke the chain once, and that was because another robot rode up onto the frame of our team's robot, and the wheels of the other robot became entangled with the chain on ours.

Here's a few pictures of their robot: (sorry for their large size)