pic: Powerful Drivetrain - 418

[leeweek]

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[Skute327]

3 speed dewalts?! very nice how well did they shift? I have bad experiences with stripping the shifting mechanism... I needed the program to "wiggle them in" which was annoying and unprofessional... other than that they are incredibly durable!

[newton418]

We've never had that problem. One problem we did have was too much friction in one. There is a little clip inside the DeWalt transmission that helps keep the transmission in a given gear (the clip clicks into place). It turned out that the clip on that transmission had been bent at some point, so we simply bent it back to a desirable amount of resistance. Though it doesn't sound like this is the problem you were having, you might want to check it out.

[AdamHeard]

Am I missing the chains, or are the rear two wheels (atleast from this pics pov) not powered.

If so, what effect did this have on driving?

[easponge]

Originally Posted by AdamHeard

Am I missing the chains, or are the rear two wheels (atleast from this pics pov) not powered.

If so, what effect did this have on driving?

Yeah, it sort of looks like only the front four wheels are powered. Are the back two just for balance, or is there some crazy mechanism that hooks up the motor controlling the arm to those wheels?

[newton418]

Originally Posted by easponge

Yeah, it sort of looks like only the front four wheels are powered. Are the back two just for balance, or is there some crazy mechanism that hooks up the motor controlling the arm to those wheels?

There are 2 chains inside each piece of box aluminum. These chains connect the center axles to both the front and back axles. Though the back and center wheels are both powered, connecting them does several things:

1) If one or two of the wheels is not in contact with anything, the remaining wheels will still be powered by both motors
2) Since the back wheels probably have less traction than the combine traction of the middle and front wheels, it prevents the back wheels from slipping while the center motor struggles to provide enough torque to the middle and front wheels
3) If, for some reason, we lose power from one of the motors, all wheels are still powered (though we'd probably have to run in 1st gear for the rest of the match)

Though the chains were difficult to access, putting them inside the box aluminum saves us room, protected the chains, and provided a rigid structure. As a result we never needed to service the drive train during LSR.

[Richard Wallace]

Holy jumpin' catfish! That's a lotta oommph!