EMTB gear drive design and build

@Archer, nice job so far! The way you are going about this, (throwing yourself, and design out here for advice and possible criticism), is the best way, in my opinion. I’ve done this as well, and benefited from it. Unless you are inventing something new and earth shattering that can be patented, I feel it would actually benefit you to share. There are a lot of experienced people here that might be able save you some time and possible mistakes. (I wouldn’t expect that from other gear drive guys though, and rightfully so):slightly_smiling_face:.
That said, I don’t see any benefit in using 304SS for the adapter. Along with what @rosco said, it will be heavier and much, much more expensive to machine. Good luck, and I will be following as well!

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On the upside, 304SS would look very nice. :smiley:

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For a short time anyway.

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Whoa dude! Thanks for sending me that galvanic table, I didn’t realise that could be an issue. So, by using SS304 and aluminium I have created the worst-case scenario in terms of corrosion, because they are the furthest two metals apart in the table? I imagine that would create some horrible looking corrosion marks.

I thought it might be worth making the truck clamp out of SS304 because it has two steel bearings that rotate around it, and maybe they might start to wear a softer alloy like aluminium 6061. Also, the grub screws inside the truck camp are M5 & 4mm long, and I was thinking the SS304 threads would provide a stronger camping force compared to aluminium.

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Welcome.
There’s plenty of places where you can’t avoid SS and aluminium in contact. The corrosion needs water to happen and salty water is worse, so if the parts stay dry prob no issue. Separating contact with a nylon washer etc can also help avoid the issue.

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Thanks for the advice :grinning: it is a bit stressful putting my design out there, but I am getting some useful feedback to improve it, so that’s great!

I think I will revert to machining the truck clamp out of Aluminium 6061 now, as you and @rosco mentioned it will cause corrosion issues, be heavier and I don’t really need the extra strength. Plus, it will be $14 cheaper to manufacture per pair of gear drives if it’s machined out of Aluminium, which is a bonus!

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I’ve only put ABS through by Voron printer so far, it would be interesting experiment with flexible filaments like TPU :grinning:

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Interesting! by pure luck there is a neoprene gasket in between the stainless-steel truck clamp and aluminium motor mount, and it should be dry inside the gear drive, so maybe corrosion wouldn’t be an issue. I think I will make the first prototype out of aluminium and if it shows signs of wear or corrosion swap it for stainless.

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I mean signs of wear not corrosion, aluminium won’t corrode. Its past my bedtime lol

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Just stopping by to wish you luck in developing those.

I really like to see another gear drive on the market. Just curious, why is everybody so keen on metal gears wheel and motor. I think 3D servisas showed us that plastic/metal works just fine.

And it has to be more quiet than metal/metal.

Is it cheaper to make it that way?

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I’ve seen many plastic gears break in person. Never seen a metal gear drive break.

Sure it’s probably due to bad install. But then that means metal gears are just more tolerant of install conditions, which is a good thing.

So Plastic gears are fine, but just fine. Metal is better minus sound.

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image

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That is a nice design & logo mate.

Be a shame if @twampa saw it.

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One observation I had while installing the BN drives this week was that there was a hell of a lot of axle left over that needs to be accommodated for with a spacer. (Apex airs, bn m1ats, trampa superstars)

I could just move that spacer to be in between the hanger and the clamp, but then i would lose significant surface area between hanger and clamp.

It would be nice if the actual clamp piece accounted for this and gave you maximum contact with the hanger while also being spaced appropriately.

Also this one has stung me a few times with different mounting systems/motors… some motors have the shaft circlip proud of the mounting face. It would be nice if all mounts took this into consideration, as it requires some crude work to allow the circlip to spin freely if the hole is too small :sweat_smile:

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I fully support your project, there’s a ton of ways you could make your drive more unique and better. So far I love the seals. What about a better wheel adapter design. Right now Kevin’s solution is far from perfect.

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I really like the way that the newbee drives use an interlocking polyurethane wheel adapter. That’s the best solution I have seen so far

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Final suggestion would be to have the motor mounted in a way that makes it accessible/adjustable/removeable without opening up the whole drive. This would make gear drives sooo much friendlier to install/maintain IMO.

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Keep in mind that once you anodize the aluminum you essentially made not conducive due to the oxide layer, so you won’t have problems with corrosion

Nice design, and for sure you can achieve quiet operation with steel gears if the tolerance, helix angles and all that is right

I didn’t look into details, but what you need to make sure the you have more than one pair of teeth engaged at the same time, so talking just about helix angle don’t tell the full picture, but too much helix angle and the axial load on the bearings will be out of their operating area, so you need to balance helix angle, bearing loads and gear width to get into the quiet operating zone, this is why some of the helical drives we saw in the past people say there isn’t that much noise difference between straight and helical, too little angle or/and too little width

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Thrust bearings would be dope

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may i suggest the truck clamp be mounted to the outside of the motor mount, it’ll help take up the axle room that @glyphiks mentioned. it would also help assembly, moon drives have a small issue that if the truck clamp comes loose it can be a pain to remove the tub from the truck clamp due to the position of the screws.

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