Tough Box with 2 CIM's

[Andrew Y.]

Hey, we are a rookie tea this year and decide to stick with the stock toughbox gear box with 2 Cim's in each. everything installed correctly, but when we do small inputs the assembly makes a crazy noise. Sounds almost like the motors are stalling. I didnt think it would be a problem with "small inputs" but it also does this when i try to do 360 or a skid steer turn. What could cause this? Are my victors "out of sync?"

Any inputs would be great

[Miner]

The toughboxes that we are using make a lot of noise on regular use. All I can say would be to make sure that all of the sprockets are securley in place, and that it is heavily laden with grease. We used all purpose grease and a lot of it. The box runs smoother, but still with a lot of noise.

Good luck,
Jacob

[thefro526]

I think the gearboxes are just inherently loud, ours do it too.

You're using a fairly low precision gearbox with low precision motors... You're going to have a lot of chatter, no matter how you make it run. If you re-machine your bearing plates to correct tolerance (AM does a good job for the number they make, don't get me wrong), you'll eliminate a lot of this...

However, most spur gear drive trains will make more noise when going slow then when going fast, due to the chatter of the gears. If you absolutely SOAK your gears in lithium grease, you'll lose a lot of the noise... but otherwise you're stuck with it.

[Andrew Y.]

hmm i noticed the tolerances in the boxes. But i forgot to say we get ALOT of buzzing noises from the CIMS from one side....but not the other

[DonRotolo]

Our motors buzz also at low speeds, it's an artifact of the way PWM control works. A whining noise is geard, a hum/growl/buzz (almost like a buzzing electrical transformer) at low speeds is somewhat normal.

If only one is doing it, the other (quiet) one might have something wrong...

See if you can visit any other team to hear their bot before you go crazy trying to fix anything.

Don

[Cory]

Originally Posted by CraigHickman

You're using a fairly low precision gearbox with low precision motors... You're going to have a lot of chatter, no matter how you make it run. If you re-machine your bearing plates to correct tolerance (AM does a good job for the number they make, don't get me wrong), you'll eliminate a lot of this...

However, most spur gear drive trains will make more noise when going slow then when going fast, due to the chatter of the gears. If you absolutely SOAK your gears in lithium grease, you'll lose a lot of the noise... but otherwise you're stuck with it.

Being low cost should be of no factor--those plates were machined on a CNC mill, so they're precise to within the repeatability of the machine tool (around 0.0002" or so, if it's reasonably new).

The sound he's describing could be a number of things--poorly tensioned chain, sprockets that have slop on the shaft and are allowed to slide back and forth, no grease inside the transmission, etc.

[tdlrali]

Make sure you're two motors are running the same direction, you don't want them fighting each otjer.

[JoshD]

I'd just like to say to check out your small hex shaft. We somehow managed to bend one of ours and found that to be a source of a lot of noise.