The board attachment issues are fixed now.


Hi Dave,

I can't find a decent section of my build diary that has suitable pictures of how to mount drill motors, but they're on my Photobucket page. As Gary has said, one of the ways to do it is to cut a hole in a piece of plastic such as Nylon or HDPE that accommodates the shape of the front section of the drill gearbox.
The easiest way I find to do this now is:

Firstly, cut a rectangular hole of approximately 30mm x 25mm in your chassis/bulkhead material:


The profile of the front of the drill gearbox is like two of the letter 'D' back-to-back. This fits nicely into the hole you've cut:


When you buy a cordless drill and dismantle it, one of the parts you are left with is a black metal faceplate that has two screws going into the drill gearbox. You can usually see the faceplate once you have removed the chuck. Once your drill/gearbox is inserted into your chassis/bulkhead, you put the faceplate and two screws back on to hold everything in place:


The white piece of plastic is a spacer I had to use, as my material was only 15mm thick and the depth of the gearbox is at least 20mm.

In these pictures, the piece of plastic I've mounted the drill motor on is part of a chassis that gets bolted together:


So the drill motors aren't fixed to a baseplate, they're effectively 'floating'. This means that if you get turned upside down and an axe hits your baseplate and bends it, there is less chance of your drive motors getting damaged/knocked out of line.

If I get time this weekend, I'll try and make a video of the method I've just described, as often it can be easier to understand when seeing it in real time.