Another Geardrive Development in the Esk8verse

Hey everyone,

I’ve been toying with the idea of starting up my own esk8 parts shop since this whole COVID business started and I found out that I didn’t have to go to work anymore :upside_down_face:. So for the past couple months, I have been designing said parts, starting with a gear-drive.

The case will be fully aluminum. I have a Trampa truck mount modelled and will work on the Matrix II mounts now. The drive angle will be 3-position adjustable.

The gears will be mod1.5, and have several options ranging from 55/10 (5.5:1), 55/11 (5:1), and 55:12 (4.58:1)

I was initially going to make mod2 metal/plastic gears, but I’ve noticed that vendors using this setup tend to receive a lot of backlash (see what I did there?). So the plan is to go with steel on steel herringbone gears. I really like the idea of herringbone because we can avoid those nasty side-thrust forces, while also gaining the benefits of helical gears…

I am currently looking at suppliers for the herringbone gears, but @moon is right, they are crazy expensive :face_vomiting:. So I would really like to determine how many people are really into the idea of herringbone gears, or else I may switch to helical or spur.

I would like to try to keep the price (with herringbone gears) somewhere below $600usd, but it would depend on initial interest.

I will be ordering test samples soon, so I would will probably begin testing in a month when they arrive, and then if there is interest, I would order more in the following weeks for sale.

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Slick looking, trampa mount, Steel on Steel, herringbone gear… Hmmmmmmm <3

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Just make 2 helical gears lock in place like lego pieces to create a herringbone gear, can’t be that bad…

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4 gears per gear-drive might be a new record lol

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Wait actually…why wouldnt this work??

I feel like it would add a lot of complexity and they would have to match SO perfectly. I think its just asking for problems

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@surfnacho @moon @Boardnamics Can CNC achieve this?

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I also would like to ask your opinions on integrated lights in the drive. I intentionally left small pockets open on the rear section of the drive seen below

I should be able to cram a small PCB in there with lights and a diffuser. Two simple cuts in the back of the drive and we have some integrated lights!

Cool or nah?

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Really hard to do that, the keyway or whatever you use to lock the gears has to be really precisely clocked or half on the gears won’t to any works, there is a change they won’t even mesh or it may not even spin at all

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These lights would only work on outward mounted setups.
Don’t think it’s worth the extra complexity, steel-on-steel herringbones is ambitious enough for now :crazy_face:

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The smaller gears actually don’t seem to be that expensive, so they can probably all be machined as a one piece herringbone gear. The 55t gear is the very expensive one. Once all of my quotes come back, I can look into this and see if it is any less expensive. Since it would need extra threading and essentially be twice the unit quantity of the original plan, I imagine that it would still end up being more expensive.

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True. I feel like outward mounted is the direction of most mtb setups though. I haven’t tested it front mounted on boards yet since I do not have any wide skate trucks at the moment. I could also put in different coloured LEDs or diffuser inserts depending on the application.

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I really like the design but will be completely honest with you, herringbone makes no sense for our use, with reasonable gear width and enough helix angle to enter in the silent operating region, it can be designed so that the thrust forces are well within the operating range of all motors bearings

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Alright well if that is the case, I should easily be able to switch to helical without much modification and likely cut out a significant portion of the cost. But I’ll see what people think before I move ahead with that

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Even if we don’t NEED herringbone gears they still have some good advantages for someone who wants to pay a premium.

I have helical gears and have to use the super strong Loctite so the smaller gear stays on the motor. If I have to service the motor it’s super annoying to get it off. I assume that herringbone gears don’t need the strong Loctite because they have no axial load.

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That was my whole reasoning behind herringbone actually. I was afraid that the gear had potential to slip out of position under braking.

I have also had to do a lot of maintenance on my boards over time and super strong loctite also would cause problems

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Do you think it would be possible to make aftermarket herringbone gears for existing gear drives or will they need more space?

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On my Avio MK2 GD’s I didnt use loctite on the motor pinion at all. Just the motor key :man_shrugging:

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Its easier to lock them together using geometry, bolts, heck even jbweld rather than a key.

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I thought about it, and it is possible without too much modification I think, but I would feel bad creating a mod for someone else’s drive.

I think it’s okay to do it as a one-off to your own drive (which would be really expensive), but I wouldn’t mass produce a mod for someone else’s drive

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