2011 Dewalt Supliers.

[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."

[Bruceb]

So you are saying this is something new? The old ones had a fixed shaft?
Bruce

[Tristan Lall]

Originally Posted by Bruceb

So you are saying this is something new? The old ones had a fixed shaft?

A picture would be useful here, but I don't have any...so I'll try to explain.

The old DeWalt XRPs had a cast metal housing that slipped partially over the gearbox, and extended forward to the chuck. It contained the drive shaft, and retained it with two dissimilar ball bearings (looked like conventional ones; no angular contact or fancy stuff). We (188 in 2006) deviated from the standard NBD plan by removing the shaft, and replacing it with a different shaft that fit within the same housing, but which had a Ø0.5 in keyed shaft instead of the chuck thread and left-hand retaining screw. On the gearbox end of that shaft, we milled two opposing flats on the cylinder (so it looked something like the Ø0.375 in portion of the Globe motor shaft). Those flats interfaced with a little sintered steel coupling on the front of the gearbox, providing a positive connection that was not susceptible to small axial misalignment.

If I'm understanding you correctly, they've replaced the shaft-with-flats with a taper. That ought to work too, as long as you make sure (as we did) to let the shoulder on the shaft transmit the axial loads to the housing, so that the taper doesn't disengage.

[Bruceb]

Well, maybe they didnt change it after all. The shaft, after I took it all appart, is press fit into the bearing and then trapped buy a steel ring behind it that is about .375 wide and looks for all the world like just a piece of steel tube but it only fits on the shaft one way like it has a mating taper behind the bearing.
Tristan, did you use hardened steel for the shaft that you made?
Bruce

[Tristan Lall]

Originally Posted by Bruceb

Well, maybe they didnt change it after all. The shaft, after I took it all appart, is press fit into the bearing and then trapped buy a steel ring behind it that is about .375 wide and looks for all the world like just a piece of steel tube but it only fits on the shaft one way like it has a mating taper behind the bearing.
Tristan, did you use hardened steel for the shaft that you made?
Bruce

That's how it worked on the old drill. The retaining collar was a press fit, and though the inside may have had a taper (I never checked), the shaft itself was straight.

We didn't use hardened steel for the shafts, and that was a mistake. The steel we used (AISI 1018 first, I think, then AISI 12L14) was weak and ductile, and the torque of the drivetrain caused it to twist at the interface with the planetary gearbox after repeated back-and-forth cycling. In retrospect, we should have just used AISI O1 drill rod, and then hardened and tempered it.

[Bruceb]

O.K. I'm not a machinist so how do you harden and temper drill rod after machining it? I think that is what I would like to do as the shaft on the Dewalt does not exactly fit my application.
Bruce

[JamesCH95]

Here's a Datasheet on AISI 01 Steel: http://www.act-on.ca/acton/Steel/Ima.../AISI%2001.pdf

It outlines different heat-treating procedures. Usually one would send parts out to a heat treating shop.

Look at this hardness-to-strength conversion chart for steels to chose the hardness you would like to achieve through heat-treating: http://www.engineersedge.com/hardness_conversion.htm
You'll pick a range for the heat-treater to aim for. My experience with 4130/4340 steel (which is commonly used in high-performance driveshafts) has been that Rockwell C 25-30 is plenty strong with good ductility. If you harden the part too much it will crack before it yields much, and I would much rather have a part yield and still be functional than crack and be useless. If the shaft is experiencing frequent impact loading, a more ductile or less-stiff material would handle those loads better.

@Tristan: why did you (your team) go from 1018 steel to the somewhat weaker 12L14 steel? EDIT: I guess it depends on the grade of each steel, one could be stronger than the other, depending on heat-treatment and cold working.

[Bruceb]

James, is there a steel that would replace the dewalt driveshaft that I can machine and not need to be heat treated? Going to power a swerve drive with it?
Thanks
Bruce