I am going to do a 6 motor drive and I have 4 motors connected with gears at 400 rpm. I am having trouble with connecting the last 2 motors to fit well without taking up a ton of space where the intake will be and running into bracing for the conveyor belt. Would it be a good idea to connect the last 2 motors with a chain to help power the drive train and what would some tips be?
Take a look at this post. There are a number of good ideas that may help.
I think i will use chain to connect the last 2 motors but what would some tips and warnings be
If your really going to use some chain just make sure to put polycarbonate or something that makes it so that other robots can’t accidentally break it.
Just be careful how you build it. Don’t let the chain be too tight or too loose, otherwise you will have a lot of friction or “slop”, respectively. I also would double chain because chain can always break and then you are without some part of your drive chain. The one time I did use chain my first year it did break in have game play and I’ve always used gears since.
If possible double chain as chain is more prone to failiure than gears. you will probably want to also use some sort of tensioner wether passive or active in order to make sure that the chain doesnt skip resulting in loss of power or breaking of hte chain.
dont use chain, it introduces a lot of slop, is bulky, and is prone to breaking.
this has been the general consensus by most when this question gets asked in vtow or vcad, and i have expirienced this aswell.
Gearing your drive train is a lighter and more efficient method since it allows a lot more variety for speeds and simplicity
chain that is done properly doesn’t have alot of slop, especially the 6p IQ chain with larger sized sprokets. very good teams have done it. but yes it is definitely prone to breaking. some other issues is that it is harder to get very good drive train frictoin as the chain is usually barley to tight. although i havent noticed it to be a huge issue. i built a 360 RPM drive on 4inch wheels robot that used chain using 24t:40t over the summer for fun and i never had the chain break once through out about 24-36 pretty roughf matches and i never noticed any overheat issues due to friction. (we were in a shed that was around 95-100 degrees)
pictures kinda crappy but you can kinda see also dont judje BQ to much i built and tuned this bot in about 24hours using scrap parts
Believe it or not, several years ago connecting motors with chain was done by many/most teams. I was a coach back then, and I can tell you that while it does work, there are some big drawbacks. Using 6T sprockets (as was commonly done) introduces a lot of friction. This translates to putting added stress on the VEX chain, which does tend to break easily. If you do choose to go this route, it would be better to use the newer 6P chain and sprockets with more teeth