pic: Team 2068 2014 competition chassis

[MetalJacket]

Originally Posted by Electronica1

Cool to see another va team with a sheetmetal drive. I am curious though, how difficult is maintenance with only being able to access the wheels from the bottom of the drive?

Only maintenance we ever had to do at competition was shoot some grease up into the gears (we drove the wheels using a single stage of reduction with the pinion driving a gear bolted to the wheel), and our robot sits about chest height on our cart with the wheels hanging off the side so they're not too difficult to access. If we ever needed to replace a wheel or anything though, once the shaft is pulled out, the wheel can just fall out of the bottom. I won't be on this team next year (heading off to college) but I will certainly keep playing with this design - and shortening the height of the modules so the wheels stick out the top a bit (less material, less weight) is one thing I would change. That would also allow a secondary method to access the wheels.