CERES MK2: Devlog 6

What’s New: I decided to completely overhaul the design of the robot and essentially start from scratch. In the initial iteration, the entire weight of the robot was resting on the motor’s shaft/axle. In this new design, I’ve pivoted towards a gearbox design that will allow for the weight of the robot to rest on 4 axles instead of the motor itself. So far, I have only designed the gearbox itself as well as the mounts for the axles to sit on. This ensures the longevity of the robot as the wheels are no longer directly attached to the motors.

The gearbox itself uses two gears, with a 1:1 gear ratio as I did not want to change the RPM output of the wheel, as I felt that the 100rpm provided by the motors was sufficient in terms of both torque and speed. The gearbox mounts to the frame using 4 sliding T-nuts and M5 screws. The axle itself is an M5 threaded rod, and the rod sits on 3 ball bearings with an inner diameter of 5mm to rotate freely.

What’s Next: I’ll have to redesign a majority of the body panels, as well as the wheels themselves. I’ll likely do that before I move onto designing new mounts for the electronics.