Has anyone tried using the versa 90° drive kit in some part of their climbing mechanism?
I am considering using a Neo motor for the climb, and having the output shaft 90 degrees from the motor for convenience and wanted to try the versa bevel gear drive but wanted some information before committing.
Those 90 degree drives are pretty stout, but the VP itself is not. I would not use a Neo in a VP for a climbing application. If you must, I would recommend using only 3:1 or 4:1 stages.
An AndyMark 57 Sport or Rev MaxPlanetary is probably a better choice.
We used a 90° drive on our 2020 climber. The VP & 90° worked fine when paired with a Falcon 500 at 10:1.
What is this advice based on? Because the load rating guides for the VP would certainly beg to differ, as would my team’s experience - we’ve climbed multiple years using a VP with a 7:1 reduction without any issues at all.
Multiple failed 7:1 stages that were used in an application where they were in the green zone in the load rating guide. The higher ratio stages have smaller sun gears that like to shear off their teeth.
Our very robust climber last year used Neos with Versa, 63:1 (7/9). No problems at all with the gearboxes. Climbed zillions of times; we had one on each side of the bot, and more than once we failed to engage one hook and climbed with just one side.
I’ve also never had any trouble with 7:1s in applications like climbing that put high load on the gearbox. Not sure that “don’t use 7:1s” is general purpose climber advice I’d give out - maybe just some reminder that dynamic loading from a mechanism can be more complex than a simple loading chart?
As for the general advice - the 90 degree boxes are good. Any time you are unsure of some VersaPlanetary component’s strength, always remember you can move it closer to the motor to reduce the load that part is under.
254 used a versaplanetary with a 90deg bevel output to drive the roller at the bottom of our 2x2” stinger tube that deployed down in our original pre-suction climber we used at our regionals.
So as far as using it for a little for positioning after a climb? Sure.
For lifting your robot? Would not immediately recommend.
Not all VP are created equal. You have to take care of them during the assembly process.
Echoing what was said, Not all VP’s are created equal and how you treat them and put them together is really important. If you do your math right, load the gearboxes properly, use the right amount of lithium grease in the gearbox, then you SHOULD be fine (just from a VP aspect)
With the 90 degree drive, I think you should be fine, but I’d try and see what documentation VexPro actually has for the gearboxes and loading the 90 degree drives on heavy applications. I have more personal experience with the 180 drives, and I definitely recommend NOT using the 180 drive for high load applications like a climber.
Did you have any “shock loads” above and beyond the static load? It may be difficult to detect that you are applying shock loads i.e. it took a while for us to figure out that the arm on one of our robots would bounce as we traversed the field and especially when the robot changed direction or crossed over the Rough Terrain in 2016.
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