4488 Off-season Gearbox

[craigboez]

This has been a recurring theme of commenters in several threads: "Why would you build X when you can just buy it? It will save time, money, be more reliable, you can spend time doing more productive things, etc." I think we can all agree that there are very good reasons for buying stuff off the shelf, and we're all aware of the upside in doing so. Is it really necessary to first point this out before helping answer a few good questions?

The goal of all FRC teams is not to build the best robot as efficiently as possible. Many teams try to learn, do new things, and knowingly do things the hard way.

Just think if some 6th grader would have given you a calculator in 3rd grade and said "Here, use this instead of doing that long division stuff. It's much faster and you'll make fewer mistakes".

[KrazyCarl92]

Originally Posted by sst.thad

I know 6 inches are big, and we plan on using 4s, but I like contigencies. Also, can you fit an AM Kit wheel or a VexPro VersaWheel onto the 1.25 inch output shaft? Everytime I look those wheels are wider, and I don't even know how you would mount those to a 1.25 inch long output shaft.


Also its about ~$100 extra per gearbox, not $50.

For shaft mounting the width of the wheels is not what matters, the length of the hub is what matters. A hub does not necessarily need to span the entire width of the wheel. A 1.5" wide wheel may operate perfectly fine with a 1" long hub, and still leave space for a .25" spacer between the hub and bearing on a 1.25" output shaft.