Flywheel speed loss

Hi there–

In our flywheel design, we remove the cartridge and connect the shaft directly to motor to get 3600RPM. Due to dimension limit of our design, use two same gears (so we have 1:1 ratio) to connect the flywheel shaft to the motor shaft.

  • When we run just the motor, we measure 3600RMP

  • When we connect the two gears together (not flywheel yet), speed drops to 3200RPM

  • When we attach the flywheel to the other shaft, speed drops to 2800RPM

Our gearbox is very well designed using high string shaft ball bearing, so avoiding mistakes like poor design frictions.

Question is: why speed of motor keeps droppings and we can only achieve 2800RPM at flywheels? We can’t shoot across field in match auto with this speed.

Thanks
CJ

Please post pictures.

Some tips that I can give based off the information that you have given:
If you’re running a no-cartridge setup, you want to run directly from the motor into the flywheel on the same shaft.
The reason for this is because gears create friction. If this isn’t possible, try using a legal lubricant (non-aerosol based) on the gears. This usually increases speed by around 200 rpm in my testing.

The gears could be pressed too tightly against each other.

Are the gears spinning well by themselves? We had a problem where we tightened a shaft collar too tight to where our flywheel reduced its speed by 100 rpm.

A few comments/questions:

  1. What are your motor watts at each of these stages?
  2. A single motor will launch very well, drop the 2nd motor.
  3. Flush the grease from the bearings using a SAFE solvent like electronic cleaner. Measure before/after watts.
  4. Check friction… it’s always friction.