Here is a good pic of the 2004 TechnoKats gearbox.
Features:
Integral sprockets (2) required no output shaft. Chains were ran out of the gearbox, to the wheels.
2 motors could be mounted to the right side mounting plate (3/16" thick). In this case, we used 1 CIM motor and 1 FP motor with a custom, single-stage planetary reducer. The output of the planetary reducer had the same exact geometry of a CIM motor. Therefore, two CIM motors could be mounted here, or even 1 CIM motor with 1 planetary reducer holding a Drill motor.
No welding was required
No wire edm processes were required
3/8" id and 1/2" id bearings (non-shielded, flanged) were used
2.56:1 ratio between high and low gear
Dog-style shifting gears
With 1 CIM and 1 FP motor, estimated performance is…
High Gear: 950 rpm, 9 N-m
Low Gear: 370 rpm, 23 N-m
I am not publishing a complete white paper on this gearbox this summer. Instead, Mark Koors and I are starting a side business and selling these gearboxes as standard, off-the-shelf parts. Stay tuned for more news. Our storefront will be at "www.andymark.biz".
cool idea for those who don’t have the resources/technical knowledge to build something like this…i think though it may take away from the learning process, but hey what do i know…cool stuff andy
Because its good to know your (almost non-existant) competitiors, http://www.robotmarketplace.com/. From what I have seen on CD, magically, no one knows of the existance of the prebuilt gearboxes available on that site designed specifically for our purposes.
On another note, I don’t really want to start a big professional involvement argument thread, but this really emphasizes the situation on some teams. It seems to me that this creation must have been entirely Andy Baker and Mark Koors for them to undergo such a venture. At least they are being fair and making their (some would say unfairly used, but) awesome skills available to all FIRST teams and somewhat negating the argument about unfair professional involvement…
I would guess that the teams that have the machining capability to securely mount the kit motors to those gearboxes also have the machining capability to make a gear box much more suited to their needs.
I didn’t see any gearboxes there that are two motors, and only the dewalt gearboxes shifted.
Edit: You’d be better off putting this in a seperate thread if you want to make sure people hear about robotmarketplace.com.
Just because these gearboxes would be potentially widely available doesn’t mean that they will be the best solution for FIRST teams trying to make a gearbox. Sure it may take away from the learning experience, but it may intrigue a student to try and design their own gearbox. This would facilitate the learning experience of this student.
Anyway…Nice Gearboxes Andy!
Hope to see many FIRST teams using these and their own deviations of this.
I’ve seen that before, and I wasn’t really interested.
You can buy it, but you end up paying just as much as if you made it yourself, and it isn’t exactly user customizable, or usable straight off the shelf.
alright, maybe I overstated how much application it has to FIRST, but it still is surprising considering there are seemingly no other organizations that sell any sort of gear reduction like these. Up until Andy Baker started, of course
A chip and a Fisher Price?!? Talk about Power! I hope that it was only for tank drive.
During the 2002 season, 461 made a set of crab-treads (a great drive train, before considering weight), where two were powered by one chip each and the other two were powered by a FP and a Drill each. The FiP didn’t work well, since it had plastic gears that couldn’t handle competition torque. We ended up just using the drill, and the drive itself worked pretty well. I will look into getting an inventor/auto-cad file for the teams who think they can do four systems (what we did) in less than 50 pounds. A word of advice: while it may seem “cool” and “awesome” to put a 50 pound drive system, the frame better be welded, thin-walled box aluminum and the arms must be light…Very light.
Okay so baker and koor are selling these things , soon, this leads me to wonder what marval of machining The T-Kats are gonna have on their robots this year… I am afraid… Seriously Afraid
The FP adapter design worked out well for us, until we got to IRI. The needle bearing on the output shaft found it’s breaking point. This is a planetary assembly that we want to sell in the future, but it needs some improvements before that is done.
I do plan on putting together a descriptive paper on this, just not all of the print details. We used the same internal hex shaft shifter. Here are the ratios used:
CIM motor: 18 tooth, 32 dp
Intermediate shaft: 64 tooth, 32 dp (mates w/ CIM gears), 1/4 face
Low gear: 15 tooth, 20 dp, 14.5 p.a. 3/8 face
High gear: 28 tooth, 20 dp, 14.5 p.a. 3/8 face
Shifter/output shaft:
Low gear: 48 tooth, 20 dp, 14.5 p.a. 3/8 face
High gear: 35 tooth, 20 dp, 14.5 p.a. 3/8 face
12 tooth, size 35 sprocket (qty.2)
Andy,
Any chance we could get a picture in from the (open) side? Also, I know it’s early still but is there any general price area you can give us for one of these hot little gearboxes? Thanks.
I got the privilege of assembling the gear boxes that went on 45’s robot this year. I learned a ton from Andy, Mark Koors and Steve Butler about how they worked and how to assemble them. They really let us students get in on building some real important parts. I new basically nothing about how to build a gear box or anything on the robot, but by the end of the year I learned how to build gear boxes, use new tools, met a ton of cool new people and I even got to drive the robot around a few times. This years gear box is really reliable and very powerful I think. I would like to thank Andy Baker, Mark Koors, Steve Butler, Alan Anderson and Amy “Prib” for teaching me a ton of new things this year and i really look forward to the next 3!
