pic: FRC488 -- Fall Project

[Madison]

Originally Posted by AllenGregoryIV

Madison, I really like this any chance you are going to share the CAD?

I suppose I can, though I'll have to find some efficient way of doing so.

Originally Posted by AustinSchuh

Not a bad start. I assume that you are posting this here for feedback, so here I go. I see a lot of similarities to 971's frames, which means this frame has the potential to be bullet proof and very nice.

Austin -- I appreciate all of your feedback and will address it as well as I can tomorrow. It's late now.

Originally Posted by Chris is me

Edit: On a closer look, they're definitely dead axles that are already serving this purpose, but my point still stands with regards to saving some cost + it's far easier to find good round stock than good hex stock.
I like the concept a lot!

Dead axles everywhere. I'm using McMaster-Carr part no. 91780A901 for the axles. I'd use round standoffs here to save a bit of money / frustration with the hex bearings if I could, but the COTS hex standoffs are more readily available and cheaper than anything round at that length.

The wheels are VexPro Versawheels with 3/8" hex bearings coupled to 64 tooth, 1/2" hex bore gears. The 1/2" hex bore clears the 3/8" dead axle hex. We've run this arrangement a few times.

The idler gears are 35 tooth AM shifter gears and are designed to have a bearing pressed in. Here, we'd like to use the WCP equivalent gears in aluminum.

Originally Posted by Mk.32

So if your competition frame was bent and threw chains, how does going to an all gear setup help? If you run your gear-driven frame rough and it gets bent it sounds like it will destroy gears due to incorrect mess?

Knee-jerk reaction. Given the same conditions we had in the 2013 season, this frame would fair only a little better. The biggest problem we faced (outside of our frisbee systems being garbage) was that we couldn't get any sheet metal parts beyond the frame made in our build window and the finished frame was missing the belly pan. I expected that'd give it a lot of rigidity and, in its absence, the entire machine was too flexible.

In the end, if it is feasible, we're happy to avoid chain. Even when it's working (95% of the time for us), it's still a pain the butt to get it installed and tensioned properly.