Master Gearbox's

[Tom Bottiglieri]

Originally Posted by Cory

I'm with John. AM gearboxes qualify as bulletproof in my book.

There is no better bang for your buck. End of story.

Third'ed.

We only had one problem with ours this year (which I'm pretty sure is due to an assembly error), and the support we received on the product was fantastic. What other companies answer business emails at 11pm?

[JesseK]

Download the JVN calculator and look under the first tab called "Specs." It has all the information you would need about the motors that are supplied in the kit. It also shows specs on stall torque, stall current, and free current when you combine motors together. And of course you can easily calculate the speed of your drive train, rotary mechanism, linear mechanism, and intake mechanism as well. It's a useful tool. Download it from here.

I can't stress this tool enough. The biggest thing we gained from using this tool was figuring out why we were pulling so much current on our '07 robot. To alleviate this, in '08 we used 2 CIMs per side in order to facilitate pushing through traffic along with a AM Super Shifter. 23 amps sustained per motor ('08 low gear) is ALOT better than 65 amps when pushing ('07 single speed)...

I also fourth the AM recommendation. I just found a local machine shop who may be able to do custom gearboxes for us in future years but until we reach a deal in coming months, we plan on sticking with AM shifting gearboxes. The problem we had this year was an error on our part and the AM rep in Atlanta stuck with us until we found the issue.

Great parts, even greater people.

[AdamHeard]

Originally Posted by JesseK

I can't stress this tool enough. The biggest thing we gained from using this tool was figuring out why we were pulling so much current on our '07 robot. To alleviate this, in '08 we used 2 CIMs per side in order to facilitate pushing through traffic along with a AM Super Shifter. 23 amps sustained per motor ('08 low gear) is ALOT better than 65 amps when pushing ('07 single speed)...

I also fourth the AM recommendation. I just found a local machine shop who may be able to do custom gearboxes for us in future years but until we reach a deal in coming months, we plan on sticking with AM shifting gearboxes. The problem we had this year was an error on our part and the AM rep in Atlanta stuck with us until we found the issue.

Great parts, even greater people.

I would ask that shop to make other parts for the robot you can not buy rather than gearboxes you can get from AM.

[Billfred]

Originally Posted by JesseK

I can't stress this tool enough. The biggest thing we gained from using this tool was figuring out why we were pulling so much current on our '07 robot. To alleviate this, in '08 we used 2 CIMs per side in order to facilitate pushing through traffic along with a AM Super Shifter. 23 amps sustained per motor ('08 low gear) is ALOT better than 65 amps when pushing ('07 single speed)...

I also fourth the AM recommendation. I just found a local machine shop who may be able to do custom gearboxes for us in future years but until we reach a deal in coming months, we plan on sticking with AM shifting gearboxes. The problem we had this year was an error on our part and the AM rep in Atlanta stuck with us until we found the issue.

Great parts, even greater people.

Originally Posted by AdamHeard

I would ask that shop to make other parts for the robot you can not buy rather than gearboxes you can get from AM.

Or, alternatively, have them make the parts for your gearboxes that you can't get from AndyMark. If their parts fit some of your design (say, your shifting mechanism), plop those into Inventor and save your machine shop some work. Less-stressed resources are happy resources, in past experience.

[sdcantrell56]

Originally Posted by Billfred

Or, alternatively, have them make the parts for your gearboxes that you can't get from AndyMark. If their parts fit some of your design (say, your shifting mechanism), plop those into Inventor and save your machine shop some work. Less-stressed resources are happy resources, in past experience.

Thats what I'm thinking for next year. Ive been comparing dewalts to a custom dog shifter and it looks like its only going to cost us about $50-75 more per transmission for a dog shifter. Which depending on how our dewalt prototype works, might be worth the price difference to go with the bulletproofness (I just made up a word) of the spur gears. We would have to modify an AM shifter for direct drive but other then that it would be perfect.

[Andy Baker]

Thank you all for the kind words regarding AndyMark products. We realize that we are not perfect, but we are continually improving and working to provide parts that benefit FIRST teams.

Originally Posted by JesseK

The problem we had this year was an error on our part and the AM rep in Atlanta stuck with us until we found the issue.

Great parts, even greater people.

That rep in Atlanta is Nick Boyce. He is a freshman at Purdue-Kokomo, in the ME Technology program. He was the mechanical student leader on the TechnoKats (team 45) during the last 2 years. Nick works mornings at AndyMark and takes classes during the rest of the day. He will also work full time this summer, helping us do various things. I believe that he likes his job.

Nick is an important part of our small team at AndyMark. Mark and I are both happy that Nick was a good service to teams at the Championships. We decided to spend time as key volunteers on the fields, and left the booth to Nick. We wondered if this was a good thing to continue to do, and hearing that Nick did a great job helps us fill these key roles (Mark as FTA on Archimedes and me as referee on Newton) to help the FRC Championship run smoothly.

Thank you again,
Andy

[Not2B]

The AM tough boxes are awesome - and although some people think they are expensive, they really are a great deal if you look at making your own. Price it out... seriously.... (Go down to Crazy Andy's - their prices are INSANE!)

Making your own box has other values, like the experience of making your own. But if you are concentrating on something else.... I don't know if you can beat them.

Plus the support is very good.