If I’ve read correctly, ChiefDelphi uses their NBD transmissions in both FIRST and OCCRA. How do you attach the servo to the motor in OCCRA? Or, more accurately, how do you drill the holes in the Dewalt shifter without taking the motor apart to do it (illegal as per my understanding of the OCCRA rules)? It seems like it would be very hard to hit the oddly shaped white piece of plastic twice accurately without taking it apart?
Thanks,
Pat
The OCCRA Team #47 has no servo shifters. They run in second gear only unless they manual shift them to 1st or third. They have NOT done any modification to the units.
Team #0002 also doesn’t shift at all.
You don’t really need more than one gear for moving all of 5 yards at a time.
Team 469 has the servos mounted. I have not seen them shift yet.
Using servos is legal this year. They are on the additional materials list.
A caution would be the to follow the directions in “Nothing But Dewalt” instructions. Please see my response in the Q & A Section for more details.
Note: shifting will require programming to control the distance the servos move.
By using servos, do you mean servos bought from Hitech (the models from first) or the vent motors that we were given in the kit?
Also, would it be illegal to take apart the motor if no modifications were done to the transmission? For example, if we needed to take the black plastic (essentially part of the casing) out to drill into it.
I actually think we’ve abandoned the need for shifting in the first place, but it’s always nice to know.
I believe more specifically what scott is asking questions whether we are allowed the drill into the “white plastic piece” indicated on the NBD whitepaper or if we would have to come up with a different method of attaching the servos to the drills (ie magic).
It’s not really an issue of needing to shift so much as wanting to. Right now, our robot is slower but more powerful than pretty much anyone else on the floor, and it’s not that big a floor, so it’s not that big a problem. A little extra speed in the beginning and end of matches certainly couldn’t hurt however. Our drive motors come with an excellent transmission literally built-in, why not use it?
Let’s be straigthforward:
Is drilling a small hole in the black piece used to make the drill motors shift considered a modification (a.k.a. is it illegal?)
Thank you
Francois
P.S. I’ll post that in the Q&A
Please read the Q & A answer.
My opinion on the NBD is that it was created to adapt motors from the FIRST kit to the dewalt transmissions that shift. We do not get those motors in OCCRA. The simple way to do it in OCCRA would be to simply drill a hole in the black shifter piece which is plastic, then mount the servo to the motor some how, and run the linkage from the servo to the shifter knob. We decided not to shift because we really didn’t see the need to. Plus it requires messing with the program, the field is not as big as messing with the programing of the robot. Good luck to anyone who wants to try and I would love to see it in OCCRA. 