The Unnamed (FW)

[Ellis]

Yes, as Mario says, that is likely the failure. It's a flaw with all Gimson/drill-based gearboxes. Surprising it happened so soon, maybe it was the additional load from the belts that accelerated the process. Pop it open, it's likely the output axle's carrier plate is toast and the second stage gears might be half eaten. If so there are a few fixes.

You'll likely to have to replace the shaft, typically the holes in the plate that these pins press into get badly stretched and won't serve again when they fail like this. I intend to try and solve the issue with some custom pins, that have an m4 threaded portion that taps into the carrier plate. With a bit of permanent loctite this should prevent the pins from ever loosening, I just haven't come round to testing :P. Another method may be to simply apply some of the same metal glue/loctite to the pin (popping it out carefully and putting it back in with gloop) but I don't know how effective that would be. There's a third solution which involves sourcing the right diameter rod, leaving it a little long (so protruding about 1mm on the output shaft side of the plate) and then ballpeening that little stub so it mushrooms out, again so the pin cannot pull through and fail. That method has been used with success by the RoboChallenge guys on their drive-all-day kits for years.

Other than that, the motor is likely deaded too, but the speedo should have taken it in its stride (they have for us, many times).

I'm sure a solution can be found, I imagine you're already cooking up your own!


edit: can be done too. v