28-07-2011 22:42

s_forbes

Re: pic: 7068/7075 Aluminum Gears

I was very jealous of your gearboxes in St. Louis, and I'm very excited to hear that some of your gears will be available to purchase!

The first obvious questions: What sizes/arrangements of gears will you be offering? From the hex bores in some of the ones pictured, I'm guessing most will be drop in replacements for some of the standard AM ones. Pinions? Pricing?

29-07-2011 10:14

AdamHeard

Re: pic: 7068/7075 Aluminum Gears

The gear sizes shown are somewhat arbitrary; it was the usual custom 973 gearbox with gearteeth picked for our ratios. Also, the bores on the dog gears do not match AM. They were made for teams directly. The gears weren't perfect as some people pointed out at champs, and had worn of the anodizing completely on some (a minority); they still ran and never yielded on us however (through 4 competitions so far, and two more coming up). RC tells me him and the shop know the issues, and are certain they won't be repeated. I know he would only sell quality gears.

I would assume if he were selling he would be making standard sizes, and presumably drop in replacements. I personally would love "toughbox" style gears to give us more easy single speed spur gearbox options. Direct replacement for the AM shifter set would be cool too.

So yeah RC, that's what WE want ^^^^^^.

29-07-2011 11:05

sdcantrell56

Re: pic: 7068/7075 Aluminum Gears

We (2415) used these gears the entire season through 3 regionals, Champs, and IRI and they have held up perfectly. The anodizing has worn a bit but from what I hear production gears will be getting a much harder finish. Also the machining quality on these gears was much higher than anything I have seen offered for FIRST robotics.

29-07-2011 11:28

Cory

Re: pic: 7068/7075 Aluminum Gears

It's perfectly normal for the hard anodize to wear a bit at the tooth interface. If you look at the 254/968 2007 transmissions you'll see exactly that. We noticed this happen within a few hours of run time, but after that saw no wear of the actual tooth profile.

29-07-2011 11:29

AdamHeard

Re: pic: 7068/7075 Aluminum Gears

Exactly, the tooth profile was fine.

29-07-2011 11:46

Chris is me

Re: pic: 7068/7075 Aluminum Gears

Just gotta say, if these gears are commercially available they will completely change how I design robots.

29-07-2011 13:16

Nemo

Re: pic: 7068/7075 Aluminum Gears

Will you be a legal vendor for FRC teams?

29-07-2011 13:18

sdcantrell56

Re: pic: 7068/7075 Aluminum Gears

I'll go ahead and answer for RC and say that he will be a legal FIRST vendor. I'm pretty excited at how easy it is about to become to get quality aluminum gears. This will be a substantial weight savings for any teams that are willing to try something new.

29-07-2011 14:10

R.C.

Re: pic: 7068/7075 Aluminum Gears

Most of them will be drop in Replacements, Currently we are planning to have toughbox and the first two stages of supershifter gear replacements and then some other ratios that I think many teams will be pleased with.

I'll put more details up the pricing/site/pinions in the following weeks.

Sean is correct.

We are experimenting with a few different coatings. There will be more information in the following weeks. 1323 was also pretty happy with the gears and loved the weight savings.

-RC

29-07-2011 15:44

Nemo

Re: pic: 7068/7075 Aluminum Gears

Well, this is basically pretty awesome. I wish you guys a lot of luck, and I'll be very interested to see the prices when things get rolling.

31-07-2011 20:15

Conor Ryan

Re: pic: 7068/7075 Aluminum Gears

The original 2007 254/968 gearbox made me cry a little bit when I first picked it up. I'm very happy that somebody is finally bringing these to market because I'd like to experiment with spur gears on a bicycle eventually.