We have been encountering a problem where the metal inserts in our gears have been constantly coming out, causing misalignment in our gear train. Is there any way to remedy this?
The inserts and gears wear down over time. We have found putting a 1x1 over the insert, and attaching with screws to the gears will resolve this or use an axle collar on both sides. Obviously neither are ideal. To perfectly fix it, buy brand new gears and inserts. As they are separate parts they wear each other down.
We have the same issue constantly, It would be cool if they figured out a way to fix it.
If you have the spacing tight enough around the gears, the inserts shouldn’t pop out
In order to retain the gear axially, you need to have collars, spacers, etc. around the gear. Shouldn’t these spacers prevent these inserts from popping out? They should have nowhere to go.
We leave a slight amount of space to prevent friction, even if the spacers come out a little bit, it causes the gear to be crooked. However we can probably fix the problem with spacing that is a bit tighter
If you really want to you can use 2 shaft lock bars on either side and that would hold it in place and also help reduce the rotational force applied to metal on plastic which has killed us in the past. i.e. making the plastic square holes into circles