Changing gearing

[DynamiteHack]

Our team has been working on a kicker which uses a CIM motor connected to a toughbox. Upon completion, we found that it wasn't spinning fast enough to kick the ball more than 5 feet or so. Unfortunately, the toughbox uses a different shaft for the drive gear than for the others, so it isn't just a matter of swapping gears.
My question is, is there a way to change the gearing in a toughbox? Specifically, is there a hex-shaft available which will fit over the motor shaft in order to make the other gears fit on it?

[Ken Leung]

Yup, check out optional gear ratio at the AndyMark Toughbox page:

http://andymark.biz/am-0145.html

Very easy to purchase different sizes gears from AM and change the gear ratio.

-Ken L

[MrForbes]

You can do some minor work to one of the end plates, and move the gears around to get rid of the second stage of gear reduction. This will give you a 3.57 (?) ratio instead of 12.75:1 which is quite an increase in speed.

You didn't say what ratio you want....this may or may not help you.

[AdamHeard]

Originally Posted by squirrel

You can do some minor work to one of the end plates, and move the gears around to get rid of the second stage of gear reduction. This will give you a 3.57 (?) ratio instead of 12.75:1 which is quite an increase in speed.

You didn't say what ratio you want....this may or may not help you.

If you add the mounting holes for a CIM around the 7/8" bearing hole that is used for the intermediate stage, that's a real easy way to do what squirrel is talking about.

Also, the final stage is currently 14:50 in a toughbox, AM sells several replacements for that stage, up to 24:40 I believe.

[joek]

you don't even have to use a gearbox, you could just use a straight-up cim.