White Paper Discuss: Team 179 conceptual - single speed - 3 motor gearbox

[Swampdude]

Welded gears - you're pointing out that the key will shear before the teeth come off? I'd like to go with keys, and I don't want to warp the shafts - but back to the intent of this design as cheap and quick, and can it last a few months - maybe not. I haven't checked out that loctite #609 Andy mentions yet. That sounds pretty cool if there's a bond that can take those torques without a key- wow.

Anyhow, this is still more of a risky design, that I want to test to see if like Andy says, will it get me through 4 competitions, not will it run for 6 years. "Cheap and Cheerful" as my colleague puts it.

no 32 pitch on the .7 plastic gear, yah I agree - I think I'm just going to use this as a 2 motor design, as it's original intent. But I might towards the end of it's life throw the FP on there just to see what happens. The nice thing was that to accomodate the FP all I had to do was put a hole in the sideplate.

Shaft output, yah - we used this method off the plastic gearboxes the last 2 seasons just coupling straight out to another bridged/bearing shaft. It wasn't pretty but what we did was shim the motor mounts to the transmission wherever it wound up. But if the design permits I might throw a sprocket right on that output shaft instead of a coupling. The problem with this motor configuration is that you don't have a clear access side since motors protrude from both sides. I like the look of the new Andymarkbiz setup - with both on the same side.

1/8 side plates should be ok since I've got them sandwiched with 6 spacers over a small area. 1/8 plate is tough stuff. Unless we do put the sprocket right on the output shaft, then she'll see some much more significant loads.

I know my views on all this make conservative folk cringe but I think if it works it's all worth it- Come on you gotta admit it

Thankyou guys for your input, it's all very helpfull. I'll be sharing it with the build team.

[Swampdude]

Good so the stock carbon steel 24 pitch gears work :-)
I think I'm going to switch the bearings to the Sintered Bronze, Oilite flange bearings on Small parts - those things are $1.50 ea.
also going to look into the #609 loctite for gear bonding vs. welds
Now we're talking!

[MattB703]

Originally Posted by Swampdude

Good so the stock carbon steel 24 pitch gears work :-)
I think I'm going to switch the bearings to the Sintered Bronze, Oilite flange bearings on Small parts - those things are $1.50 ea.
also going to look into the #609 loctite for gear bonding vs. welds
Now we're talking!

I strongly recomend staying with roller bearings. I have seen may teams learn this lesson.

The way I look at it, we are all limited by the amount of energy we can put into our motors. A design that has less parasitic losses will put more of that energy to the ground.

Matt"s
$0.02