My 7536 team had a heavy robot before state and had turbo gears in it. Prior to state the made the decision to change to high speed gears. In the end they were still crapping out due to heat… we think. However on many youtube videos I see large robots moving really fast. What be the internal differences as far as temp or strain on the following: plain drive using HS gears vs torque motors used and then geared up externally to gain speed (using sprockets and chains)
Motors stalling depends on how many motors you have powering your drive as well as the friction present. (I’m assuming you have 4 motors on your drive.) Your best bet would be using internal motor gears to change the speed of the drive, as it will have less friction and take up less space than external gearing. Make sure the holes that the axles go through are aligned with each other to decrease friction. If possible add more motors to the drive.
We checked the friction and is seemed tk be really good. I gues my real question wod which is better… high speed vs torque with external gearing for speed.
Too large of a ratio jump on each step of the gear train can cause issues sometimes. So going from the internal gear ratio of the high torque gears to the speed gears and then the next step being a 7:1 can be troublesome depending on the load.
The downside is friction of adding additional steps. So there is a trade off that you could be hurting yourself in another way.
I can’t find the machine design article I found a few months ago explaining this in detail.
Also, many large chassis aren’t that heavy because they are made completely out of aluminum. If you can possible switch from steel to aluminum, it will help.
I would definitely use the internal motor gears for speed or turbo before going to an external gear ratio with torque motors. The only reason I would gear externally is if I needed more torque or speed than what the internal motor gears can provide.