Mounting of drive system

[ChrisH]

Originally Posted by lukevanoort

Nothing to be sorry for, everyone was a newbie sometime.

Not only that, it was a good technical question that prompted further discussion. It has been a while since we've had a good live vs dead axel discussion.

[Scott358]

Last year we used shoulder bolts as axels through the frame, which worked well.

[Steve Kaneb]

For the two years we've done 6 wheel (06, 07), Team 190 used both live and dead axles. The center wheels were driven using live axles with a keyed shaft and the end wheels were sprocket and chain driven from the center on dead axles.

Besides the gearing change between the years, the only major difference between the two drivelines was the chain path. In 06, we had a convoluted one to incorporate a system that got taken off the robot before ship, and after almost every match we were retracking a chain. In 07, we had straight chains with simple tensioners and never had any drivetrain problems (until we got to offseason demos and the bearing blocks had worked themselves loose).

The advantage to this system was that it was compact, as the center axle was just the output shaft after a gear reduction, and the outer wheels were just shafts bolted to the frame with wheels on them.