Integrating Encoder Into Gearbox

[Owen Busler]

Good evening CD,

Next year my team is looking to create our own custom gearboxes. We are quite confident in our shop bot and we have made a few test gearboxes so far and everything is looking great. Now we come to the question of how to mount our encoders into our robot. We have about 10 of these encoders:

http://www.usdigital.com/products/en...otary/shaft/H1

and although they are bulky we really like how they perform so we would like to keep them. In the past we have had them on our drive axles with 3d printed mounts and it never came out nicely because the mounts didnt hold up. Next year we were looking into a more robust system. One plan of attack was to lathe a 1/4 inch hole into a shaft in the gearbox and hold the encoder in place with a set screw. Here are links to two different angles. My biggest concern with this design is losing a lot of integrity in that hex shaft. I was hoping to get thoughts on whether or not this would hold up?

https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B6...VFSaVFpTDRobk0

https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B6...WhZeGVUVFZESGM


Thanks so much!