So I am requesting the opinions of fellow CD’ers. I’ve done a lot of searching on CD to get ideas.
Christmas has come early for us and we have two shiny new supershifters sitting in front of us (ordered a week before the new shifting gearbox was announced by AM :mad: ) But I digress…
We have always done a simple dropped 6wd (4 plactions/2 omnis) 4CIM toughbox set-up, each year gearing to try to go just a little faster. This year we feel we have reached our limit on top speed and a combination of bad calculations and poor wiring connections caused us to have drivetrain trouble for the first year in 5 years.
So I want to employ the help of CD to see if you think our setup will ideally work with our new SShifters.
Yes, this will be an off season project, and will be prototyped a few times but I want to at least make sure we are building something plausible as there are so many experienced drive train builders here and we are inexperienced in exploring outside of our regular set-up.
Essentially our idea is a 4 CIM, 6wd center dropped 1/8". Wheels would be 4" performance wheels with blue nitrile treading.
For the prototype we were going to direct drive the center performance wheels with a hex shaft straight off the SS (not cantilevered). The other 2 wheels would be driven off the center wheel with #25 32:32 tooth sprockets.
The gearing on the supershifter would be the 4:1 overall option (low- 24:1, high 6:1)
This gives us a theoretical 15.45 ft/s in high, and 3.86 ft/s in low.
I am however, worried with stalling problems; so to my untrained eyes it appears to have the potential to work well, but I’d like a more experienced opinion though.
Generally my questions are:
Do you feel this drive train will work effectively?
We usually use #35 chain so will #25 chain break if we get into low gear and get into a real good pushing match?
any general comments or suggestions for improvement (different gear ratio that you’ve found successful, etc.) will be greatly appreciated.
Thank You! Much appreciation in advance.
I don’t see why not, our team has used a very similar system for several years with both toughboxes and super shifters and have never had any issues. Just like your plan we direct drive the center wheel with a Hex, with the other wheels being driven off of the center wheel, though instead of using 6wd we use 10wd or 8wd.
It’s possible. We’ve bent/broken #35 chain in pushing matches before. Personally, I would recommend sticking with #35 chain for the drive system. I’ve seen teams use 25, but they seem to be the exception to the rule imo. Keep in mind that 25 chain is only rated to 140 lbs of working load, where as #35 chain is rated to 480 lbs (source).
Honestly, the setup your suggesting sounds good. As I suggested above, you might want to stick with the #35 chain if you’re worried about getting into pushing matches, but otherwise the plan looks solid to me.
As a whole your idea sounds good. it should work well. One thing that troubles me is the wheel setup. How will you connect the sprockets to the center wheel? Both on the same side? One on each? If you put them on the same size, I can almost guarantee the chains will get on top of one another and get stuck. We lost our entire 2012 season that way. Your best bet would probably be to put them in different sides, which might interfere with the gearbox… But if you plan correctly it would work.
I have no experience with #25 chains, but many teams in Israel use them for drives, and I haven’t heard of a chain breaking yet (I’ve made some research when we thought of moving to #25 chains). They’re weaker but will probably hold. If you’re not sure, hang one from the ceiling and have a… “big” person hang off it, see if it breaks (with a helmet and safety goggles, just in case).
Regarding #25 chain, use the largest sprockets you reasonably can, and come up with a bulletproof tensioning system. Large sprockets reduce the load passed through the chain, and makes the chain more tolerant to stretch and misalignment. We had a real bad experience running a #25 chain drive with 16t sprockets. The weight and space reduction can be worth it, but you have to be more careful than with #35.
With those ratios, you’re going to spend most of your time in high gear (if your driver knows what’s good for them…), and use low for getting out of defence or pushing objects. And with that top speed, you won’t stall, but you will pull significant current as you depart from a standing stop.
If you can shift fast, you can mitigate this by starting in low, and then transitioning to high quickly—it might be worthwhile to automate this.
Another solution is to add motors—because that spreads the load across more circuit breakers and more motors, for better overall performance. But that would require re-engineering the Super Shifter a little bit. (I’ve done it before; it’s not a huge deal, especially if you’re starting now.)
As for the chain, if you engineer it correctly—as Joe described—you can make it work. Understand the relationship between tension in the chain and torque on the shaft, and you’ll get a good idea if you’re exceeding the manufacturer’s specifications. (Remember to consider the case of sudden reversing loads.)
I can’t speak to the stall question, but #25 chain is sufficient provided you follow a few simple rules:
Make sure you have at least 180 degrees of wrap on each sprocket.
Make sure your sprockets are properly aligned.
Make sure the chain is properly tensioned.
Make sure you buy quality chain - McMaster chain has been good to us. One year we bought less expensive chain from another supplier and had nothing but trouble with it. We will always use McMaster for chain now.
This year we had a high traction robot using #25 chain and had no issues. We’ve pushed robots sideways across the field. During our entire season, I only remember 3 robots who brought us to a stalemate while trying to push: 25, 68, and 296. There may have been others, but that’s all I can recall. The moral of the story is despite doing lots of pushing against teams like these we had no issues with the #25 chain.
Thank you all for the great input and suggestions. They are truly valued.
Tristan, we were definitely going with the pneumatic shifting option so I think that would be an Exciting project for the programming team.
As to bards concerns here is my super detailed cad model I just made . Sorry if I slow some of your computers down trying to view it.
Orange = dead axle
Red=live hex
Green =chain runs to wheels
Everything else should hopefully be self explanatory with the above description of the system.
Tensioners would be added where needed.
Looks good to me. Though ideally if you plan your wheel spacing correctly you shouldn’t need chain tensioners.
That depends on the application, really. In 2007 we played as a primarily defensive robot and had a similarly low gear. We were able to simultaneously push 3 robots sideways on several occasions. For this years game, however, I would agree it’s probably a bit excessive, but again, depends on what you need it for.
I think their gearing is fine. Assuming a traction coefficient of 1.3 the current draw would just under 120 amps total with their gearing. This would give them plenty of safety factor just in case they ended up on the heavy side and having current drawn from another mechanism. I think for teams that are trying shifters for the first time, its better to start on the slow side. Having a extra traction limited low gear will give them one less thing to worry about.
I would recommend using the 22 tooth sprockets at least with that much torque if you want to try 25 chain.
This is very close to 987’s gearing according the behind the bumper video from FRCtop25.
