Over the Labor Day holiday, my FRC135 Alumni asked if a shifting gearbox/chassis could be designed without a counter shaft using VexPro and/or AndyMark parts. Here’s a concept, by no means is it complete, or intended to be built. It’s just a CAD exercise to see if parts from both companies could be combined (with a few modifications) to make a reasonable speed VersaChassis based concept.
I really like the use of tubing as bumper support. Super easy.
Looks really nice. Clean and well thought out. I would like to point out that the shifter on the first stage (off CIM motors) makes it difficult to clock the gears. We have done this in the past and it can get tricky, not impossible. I would suggest using a hex drive on the larger of the two pinions coming off the CIM and make the gear tooth count not divisible by six for that larger pinion gear. This would allow you to index that gear on the hex shaft to six different positions. 12 positions if the hex is not lined up with the teeth perfectly and you flip it over. You can fine tune the clocking of the gears to each other if you design it in from the beginning. I am curious about how other teams have dealt with this issue in the past that used dual pinions off the CIM.