2011 Dewalt Supliers.

[Hawiian Cadder]

after witnessing poor performance and reliability with my teams staple BB planetary gearboxes, i want to gather some information on the Dewalt gearboxes for my team, i was wondering if there are any suppliers. we will be buying the parts before this school year ends. if the XRP gearbox has been phased out, is there anywhere we can buy them, or something similar, in order to use these gearboxes.

[Greg Needel]

most if not all of the parts are still available from www.dewaltservicenet.com additional options are to see what parts exist at your local service center. You can also go the other route and buy drills, there are places online that you can buy complete refurbished drills. http://www.toolking.com/dewalt-dc930...tool-with-case

The xrp line that the NBD was based on was discontinued a year ago the new drills can be modified in a similar manner with some experimentation.


If you do plan to go the route where you take drills apart, be aware that you actually need more parts than 1 drill can provide. Additionally if you are going to do a machining setup to bore the sun gears for pressing on CIM motors I recommend making as many as you can all at once. Trying to find a WIRE EDM will be very helpful as powdered metal does not machine well.

[Gary Dillard]

Originally Posted by Greg Needel

Trying to find a WIRE EDM will be very helpful as powdered metal does not machine well.

I think you mean EDM, not wire EDM, for boring the holes. Holes are made with an electrode, versus a wire which is used for cutting. SPAM was able to bore all of theirs with standard carbide tools; I don't know how difficult it was (they have a "real" machinist on the team) but as far as I know we didn't ever break any. Still, EDM for powdered metal is probably preferred if you have a choice.

Love those NBD's

[Tristan Lall]

Originally Posted by Gary Dillard

I think you mean EDM, not wire EDM, for boring the holes. Holes are made with an electrode, versus a wire which is used for cutting. SPAM was able to bore all of theirs with standard carbide tools; I don't know how difficult it was (they have a "real" machinist on the team) but as far as I know we didn't ever break any. Still, EDM for powdered metal is probably preferred if you have a choice.

Actually, a wire EDM machine can do this job too. It works because there's already a hole in the sintered gear (through which you can feed the wire). (188 has occasionally used this method for cutting gear bores.)

[AdamHeard]

Originally Posted by Tristan Lall

Actually, a wire EDM machine can do this job too. It works because there's already a hole in the sintered gear (through which you can feed the wire). (188 has occasionally used this method for cutting gear bores.)

Yeah, and it may be preferable for sponsors who want to make an electrode the size you need.

[Bruceb]

Anybody used the toolking referbished dewalts?
Thinking of playing with dewalt transmissions this summer.
Also, what kind of carbide tooling do you need to drill these holes if you don't have an edm available?
Bruce

[Bruceb]

Greg, you said If you do plan to go the route where you take drills apart, be aware that you actually need more parts than 1 drill can provide.

What do you need other than a servo?
Bruce

[Jim Zondag]

Originally Posted by Bruceb

Anybody used the toolking referbished dewalts?
Thinking of playing with dewalt transmissions this summer.
Also, what kind of carbide tooling do you need to drill these holes if you don't have an edm available?
Bruce

We have made these NBD drill assemblies by hand without an EDM in our shop several times. We used lathe with a small carbide boring bar to carefully open up the center of the cluster gear which goes on the CIM shaft. No problem. We used a solid carbide 1/8" drill bit to bore the center of the pinion which goes on the Fisher price. I put a little red Loctite on them when we press them together, just to be sure.

[Mr. Lim]

One of our team's mentors, David Edwards, has a fair amount of experience modifying the newer DeWalt planetary gearboxes for use with the Fisher-Price motors in the KoP.

Here is a thread describing the process he used during the 2010 season:

http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/sh...ght=new+dewalt

[JamesCH95]

I've drilled a couple of the powder metal gears with regular jobber drills, just go slow and make liberal use of coolant. Sharp drill bits go a long way and don't forget to center drill.

In my experience the DeWalt transmissions can handle far more abuse than any motor can dish out. In 2005 I made a transmission that used two FP motors, it snapped a case-hardened Thomson drive-shaft without even trying. They are capable of 50+ lb*ft of torque reliably.

[Chris Hibner]

There's a guy on these boards named Josh Murphy, who is the king of the NBD. He can turn a Dewalt into a robot gearbox in no time. Send him a PM (his user name is Josh Murphy).

[Hawiian Cadder]

thank you for all the help, we order d a couple of transmissions today, and we hope to test them out before we order many more.

[Bruceb]

Picked up one of the toolking referb dewalts. The first thing I noticed was that the shaft that the chuck is screwed to is held into the gearcase on just a standard taper. The experience I have with taper fittings is that if you put a continuous side force on them they eventually loosen up and fall out. How do you keep this from happening on the dewalt?
Bruce

[Tristan Lall]

Originally Posted by Bruceb

Picked up one of the toolking referb dewalts. The first thing I noticed was that the shaft that the chuck is screwed to is held into the gearcase on just a standard taper. The experience I have with taper fittings is that if you put a continuous side force on them they eventually loosen up and fall out. How do you keep this from happening on the dewalt?
Bruce

Like a Jacobs taper, except on the gearbox end rather than the chuck end? The old XRP (from the original NBD) used a straight (well, stepped) shaft with two opposing flats on the gearbox end.

In any event, the one year I used one of these on the robot, to avoid trying to deal with the standard shaft and an adapter for the drive sprockets, I just removed and replaced the entire output shaft with something else that interfaced with the gearbox output. (And then, because it was a weak steel, the torque promptly twisted it around until it deformed and failed. So if you go that route with an old XRP, harden the shaft—maybe some tempered O1 steel would work well.)

Maybe DeWalt switched to the taper drive in order to avoid breaking shafts?

[JamesCH95]

+1 to the heat-treated output shaft. An alloy steel like 4130 or 4340 might work very well, and they can be heat-treated to very high strengths. Watch out for warping during heat-treatment; you may want to machine 95% of the part, heat treat it, then finish machining it if you find that the additional strength is required. Titanium (I know it's expensive) would do very well because of it's relatively high shear strength as compared to steel or aluminum. It would be a smart place to use titanium, not just to say "we used titanium."