Sturdy Gearboxes

[wmmc]

Hi! Rookie team member here. I'm looking for a durable gearbox for a winch design. This winch will be a core apart of lifting our robot for the scale and will be supporting a lot of weight/force/stress. I was looking at a versa planetaries with a large gear reduction. are versa planetaries durable and ok for this application or would you reccomend another gearbox?

[BeardyMentor]

as with all things, it depends. A versa planetary can do the job if the output shaft is not supporting the weight of the robot and you take care not to exceed the maximum torque. The same goes for almost every gear box. Last year, we used a CIM on a 100:1 versa planetary with a CIM motor driving a 4 inch diameter pulley as the lift motor. This was fine up to about 4 totes and a container before the movement started to become jerky.

[Sperkowsky]

Banebot P80's are pretty solid as well.

[philso]

Welcome to Chief Delphi.

You will have to draw a diagram showing the location of your gearbox in your robot, the point you attach the winch cable to, etc. They you need to do some math to calculate what torque will be applied to your gearbox. Then, get the specifications for the gearboxes you are considering and compare the torque ratings to the torque you have calculated. This is a STEM program and due to the large forces involved in winching your robot off the ground, you are very likely to be disappointed with the results if you don't do these calculations and destroy your gearbox. Please note that many of the high-ratio gearboxes have quite a low torque limit.

If you need guidance on how to do all of this, post here showing what work you have already done (diagrams, calculations) and ask for help. Your school's location at Bloor and Dufferin puts you in the middle of many experienced teams that should be able to help a rookie team like yours.