Saved?

We may have found a way around the looming potential redesign. It is too early to tell for sure, but we are hopeful. We may be able to use some rather odd pieces which may or may not have been originally intended as gears to transfer torque instead of the older bevel gears. There will be spacing problems, and we may decide to move the ninety-degree torque shift that these gears provide further back, closer to the central transmission. This will allow more room for the gears to operate, and will also eliminate the problem of the drive axle twisting. The play in the wheels that was present because of this will, however, be replaced by play in the form of the gears shifting slightly with respect to each other; the teeth don’t lock perfectly. However, this is not going to be as much of a problem. Having a larger train of gears between the bevels and the differentials should allow for more torque, and completely eliminate skipping. If the motor stalls during testing, we have done a good job. Then we will try to provide it with more power (this is where our battery research comes in). If the motor has too much power behind it and a drive train that is not sturdy enough, it will skip.
The gallery of today’s work has pictures of the new “gears” that we’re planning to use, in the context of a mock-up drive assembly we created to see how they work. They are rather large, and only have four “teeth”, which are really more like arms. For this reason, we think they will be a lot more robust, even though they’re rather unorthodox.