Kit drive train question

Technical Technical Discussion
1

I am building the rookie drive train and I am having problems. I have all the pieces and I am 100% sure that I am hooking it up correctly. But I am still getting some weird noises from the drive train. I think it sounds like some things are scraping up against each other. Does anyone have any suggestions as to what I should try? Am I missing something? If this question has already been asked I apologize, I am really tired after having spent numerous hours trying to figure this out… Thanks for any help that you have to offer!

GO 1403!!!

2

What motors are you using and how are they set up? Is the sound a metal on metal scraping sound?

3

i believe it was in team update 4 or 5 maybe 6. it states that the tranny will be noisy. all you have to do is grease em up really good a few times. if that doesn’t work reply to this and we’ll try to figure something else out. good luck.

4

He pointed out the “rookie drive train”. Assuming you are using both CIM motors, Make sure the setscrews on the gears are grinded down and loctited. Moreover, Use lubrication (Lithium-based grease) on the gears. That should make it run much smoother. If you have done all of the above that I just pointed out, inspect how you are lining up each gears. Please do keep in mind, that it wont run VERY smoothly, its a transmission, it is going to make a little bit of noise.

<Edit>

Thanks Alex for pointing out that it was discussed in one of the updates. It’s update 4, and its on page 5.

Update- When assembling the transmissions, please reference the Tips on page 2-5 of the Transmission Manual. **Most importantly, ensure that all the setscrews are secured wtih Locktite threadlocker and that the internal gears are lubricated with a lithium-based grease. **

-Arefin.

5

Thanks guys I appreciate the help. Yea it sounds like it is metal scraping up against metal. I know the drive trains are noisy this year. We have one gear box working fine, but we are not noticing any weird scraping sounds. We are using 4 cims, 2 on each gearbox. We have greased it up at several different amount levels :slight_smile: , but we still seem to have the same problem.

GO 1403!!!

6

Before I go on, I should mention that I was apart of the building of the gearboxes for 1403.

While building the gearboxes, we had our fair share of trouble, but lets not go into that.

Currently, our problem is that when one of the gearboxes is active, it makes a clicking noise, which gets louder and louder in respect to the speed. The frequency of the noise is one per revolution. Its more of metallic click noise, but that doesn’t describe completely.

When ran a series of trouble shooting things, and we have ruled out the sprocket, the motors, and the ball bearings. Upon closer examination, I noticed that the one of the setscrews had been grind-ed down, leaving it shiny. Yes, I did use the new setscrews, and they were shortened to sit flush. When I saw this, I looked at the gear that runs closest to the setscrews, and sure enough, it had chipped a few teeth.

But here is the strange part, once we remove that particular gear (this is the gear that is connected to the camshaft), the noise becomes louder.

Another curve ball, if only one motor is geared to it, the gearbox makes the noise of a beat-box.

I am positive that is was built correctly, because the other one works just fine.

Help is greatly appreciated.

P.S., is the setscrew strong enough to break/chip the teeth of a gear?

7

We had that problem and identified the cause and solution almost the same day FIRST posted an update with a proposed fix in update 4. You will want to take apart the gear boxes and and look at the final output gear. You may notice that one or both of the retainer rings is inteferring with the final output gear. Our solution was to:

  1. remove the retainer rings
  2. use the 3 nylon washers
  3. use the smaller set screws provided separately
  4. apply loctite thread locker.
  5. apply grease to the gears and run them for 30 mins forward and reverse
  6. disassemble, wipe down the grease and reapply
  7. reassemble the gear box

It cleared our problem right up.

8

Now that you mentioned it, I do think the lock retainer rings did interfere with the shaft. Have to look into that as well. Thanks.

9

Even with the short set screws, we had to grind down the edges of the set screw. Thats how close the gear is. We only ran the gear box for 20 seconds. That gear box is very loud, but doesn’t appear that the efficiency has been affected. We also had to glue the bearing to keep them from rotating in the aluminum.