cost of production

[Bazooo guy]

I don’t know any of whatever “design criteria” went into any of these machines (obviously) but I would bet performance and reliability could be increased 100+% with minimal engineering and little associated cost.

If only life was this easy......

[mudNmallards]

if I was designing a new machine and not retrofitting existing ones I would do what you are saying, but I would take the acceptable shaft size for the weight and torque and double it. then you have overkill on bearings as well. I think a lot of stuff is built to minimum specs for cost reasons as well as profit, if you made it too good you would lose out on parts sales, and getting the next generation machine that has the " new and improved stuff on them". Look at power sleds people feel they need to get a new one every couple years. I say way over build it to make it very hard to destroy.

Sir, I can ASSURE you that EVERYTHING is built to the barest minimum spec in the consumer world. (not as big an issue in industry because performance characteristics and life spans are part of the process and manufacturers must meet them or pay dearly for not)

I’m going to stick my neck out a bit because I have never designed one of these machines (YET, LOL)and comment on “what I see” rather than what I have “evaluated” but just based on what I’ve read and looked at in various manuals I really and SERIOUSLY doubt that any “engineering” ( defined as legitimate engineering processes performed to industry standards with proper validation in design concept proofing) has EVER been done.

I’m currently of the opinion that whoever just threw parts together until It accidently rolled and put something on the market.

So far (giving me an out because I have not had any design to study) I don’t see any evidence that any true front end engineering and design has ever been done with any performance criteria in mind on any of these.

Seriously, if there had been, the majority of the performance constraints and component failures I see here simply would not exist unless the vehicle wrecked.
If it exists I would love to view whatever performance criteria the individual machine was spec’d out to perform at and how they spec’d out the component parts to meet that criteria.

Parts sales ( as far as a profit producer from the business perspective) has nothing to do with the design of a machine. I don’t know of any manufacturer of anything who would love nothing better than to eliminate his parts department and go “made to order” to replace rare component breakdowns because that costs money to have and maintain and solely focus on sales “out the door”. Plus, if it doesn’t break it enhances a products “street cred” and further promotes it.

Also, there would be lesser requests for “upgrades” because in many cases those are just excuses for a poor upfront design in the first place.
Seriously, to falsify my point to prove a point use the standard industry lingo. Upgrades and enhancements bring out an extreme function of a vehicle such as rock crawling or whatever. You expect that.

Sure any mechanical device wears and breaks, that’s just the way it is but how often do automobiles and heavy equipment go down for major rebuilds? They generally don’t over the statistical percentage and those that do have high mileage or extreme conditions.

I don’t know any of whatever “design criteria” went into any of these machines (obviously) but I would bet performance and reliability could be increased 100+% with minimal engineering and little associated cost.

[azz7772]

if I was designing a new machine and not retrofitting existing ones I would do what you are saying, but I would take the acceptable shaft size for the weight and torque and double it. then you have overkill on bearings as well. I think a lot of stuff is built to minimum specs for cost reasons as well as profit, if you made it too good you would lose out on parts sales, and getting the next generation machine that has the " new and improved stuff on them". Look at power sleds people feel they need to get a new one every couple years. I say way over build it to make it very hard to destroy.

[North Country Tough]

If you could and would and its not too difficult since you have all the parts- could you slip the bearings on the shaft and take a pic of what it would like installed? (maybe with the housing too)

I see lots of pics here but they have all kinds of other stuff in them obstructing the full view

Gonna shoot some pic,s tomorrow and post them up.NCT

[mudNmallards]

I’m having a beer and brain storming session today myself after a week of mind numbing drivel and meetings. I would like to throw some shafting ideas out and invite everyone to shred them to pieces because I see that issue come up in numerous threads and that’s obviously a critical part of the machine.

Since I have never had an AATV or measured one- I’m assuming an overall shaft length of 24” for discussion purposes. ( the length really doesn’t matter from a mass production perspective because the differences are only a few dollars)

It also makes no difference whether you are in the sprocket, pulley or coupling opinion because the shaft is not going to care whats on it.
Just going from experience in designing shafts and estimating a HP from about 50 down and a weight of 1500 lbs overall-I know I can make a shaft that for all intent and purpose would be “indestructible” for anything short of a nuclear detonation in these vehicles in the 1.250 to 1.500 diameter range for about $50-60 a shaft. ( that price is probably on the high side)

Forgetting metallurgy because that’s pretty much a constant, I would:

Cryo and heat treat them out the gate ( done in batches this would add maybe $5 to each shaft) That would get the maximum capability out of the base stock.
I would harden all wear surfaces such as bearings, seals and sprockets/hubs/pulleys and that would pretty much end shaft damage from those things.

Splines et al- from a CNC perspective, once there is a CAD/CAM print to load in the machine and teach the robot- this is almost insignificant because it can have anything on it. It would have shoulders and so forth for proper component placement for alignment and what not.

One thing I would do is have everything keyed with about a zero to .002 interference (shrink) fit. This would be the best possible fit in every category. This would be for hubs, bearings, sprockets/pulleys and everything else. Granted this would require pullers for removal and heating capability ( and putting the shaft in a freezer overnight) for installation but anyone with a shop has this capability and this alone would eliminate a lot of issues currently encountered.

Thoughts?

[mudNmallards]

ok I am just thinking out loud it may be stupid or ridiculous sounding but that's how new things are invented. On that note what do you all think about a track that is designed like a tire tube but thicker with a tread design molded right in and the vehicles tires get eliminated totally. maybe this track design could ride inside the rims some how with a cog design? And all you do is mount it over the rims and inflate it to a set pressure then you have floatation.,traction,some suspension, and maybe good swimming characteristics. I don't know just a crazy thought I had today.

Well, its been my experience that in the engineering world the only “stupid and ridiculous” ideas are the ones you didn’t spec out and properly test before you put them into production.

Your “operational” concept (rims, rollers and cogs) will most certainly work because its been proven in tanks and heavy equipment for over a century.

Your “functional” concept- I can see no reason off the top of my head it would not work. We blow up things and fit them over other things all the time. You would obviously have some functional restraints but so does every other device. Nothing does “everything” well.

Materials and construction- Here is where I personally see the problem. Using rubber in a tire/rim configuration is one thing- having a rubber compound that could handle all that load, stress, torque and durability on its own is another. I don’t see putting any kind of aggressive track pattern on them as a big deal because tires do it every day.
I’m not sure such a material that would meet the application requirements exists but it would be an interesting study.

I would suggest you find someone in that field or maybe in the tire industry and pass your idea to them and develop it. Who knows what kind of new materials they have on the drawing board. That’s going to be the hard part because the function and operation are already known to be possible.

[azz7772]

ok I am just thinking out loud it may be stupid or ridiculous sounding but that's how new things are invented. On that note what do you all think about a track that is designed like a tire tube but thicker with a tread design molded right in and the vehicles tires get eliminated totally. maybe this track design could ride inside the rims some how with a cog design? And all you do is mount it over the rims and inflate it to a set pressure then you have floatation.,traction,some suspension, and maybe good swimming characteristics. I don't know just a crazy thought I had today.

[mudNmallards]

I know its a long shot but is there any potential material out there that would be strong enough for tracks but have buoyancy characteristics.

I seriously doubt any such animal exists or could be manufactured hypothetically. I’m hardly a plastics expert but I understand the concept of buoyancy pretty good and know that all plastics have about the same level of buoyance regardless of their base or density.

Buoyancy isn’t just about whether something floats or not but how much upward force it can exert when displacing water.

When one looks at it from that perspective I would think any plastic strong enough to be a track with enough buoyancy from dimension and enclosed air/foam to matter ( with only about 50% of it in and under the water pushing up) would almost have to be the size of a pallet on either side of the vehicle.

[azz7772]

I know its a long shot but is there any potential material out there that would be strong enough for tracks but have buoyancy characteristics.

[mudNmallards]

Thanks M&M you have gave me lots to thinks about,all things being equal I now believe that this bearing setup is superior to the long existing argo set upto a point, and a real world test in the conditions I use the vehicle in will tell the tale.N.C.T

If you could and would and its not too difficult since you have all the parts- could you slip the bearings on the shaft and take a pic of what it would like installed? (maybe with the housing too)

I see lots of pics here but they have all kinds of other stuff in them obstructing the full view

[mudNmallards]

Wow..

If I could have written letters like that, I probably wouldn't have gone though so many GF's in the past.

All points noted. Thanks for the run down.

*Edit - letters that are the same in length, not content. :P "Dear honey, Did you know that ANSI 50 HD chain is....."

Let me tell you a quickie short story about what drove me to eventually wind up digging into all these details. You may find it entertaining. Its obviously dated by the information but the facts and physics applied then too. (unknown to me at the time this focus was a “set up” by the staff to teach us that everything that glitters was not gold)

When I was in school one of the biggest theoretical “dreams” was the infamous “100mpg” carburetor. ( everybody was talking about the Fish and Pogue) Granted this was when catalytic converters were relatively new new things, radial tires were rare and things like emission controls, fuel injection and computers were mostly still on drawing boards somewhere and gasoline chemistry was radically different than it is today.

After examining those carbs in detail of their theory the classes produced some models that as far as carbs go looked like they might deliver performance pretty close to that mileage on paper on bench tests. Everybody got pretty excited.

Well, then came the part about putting them on vehicles for testing. (somewhat of the proverbial “cold shower” but that was the ultimate teaching point of the exercise and our young bright minds fell for it hook, line and sinker)

In short, we proved that there was no such animal possible because the properties of the gasoline did not have the stored energy potential to accomplish the task even if such a mythical beast could be built. (one of those outside parameters nobody even thought about until we did the failure analysis) Well that showed us in no uncertain terms that all those then claims of people designing and building them then the big “oil companies” swooping down and buying them up were all BS because they couldn’t be built in the first place. ( we were not sophisticated to use such modern terms like “urban legends” and back then it wouldn’t have endured to “legend” status because in theory and in the backs of all the magazines of the day it was allegedly happening in real time- for those here who remember the early and mid 70’s)

The final straw was the realization that even if you had some kind of “miracle carb” you STILL couldn’t get that legendary gas mileage unless you had the 100mpg car with the 100mgp vehicle weight, custom designed engine to maximize that carb, custom drive train, tires and vehicle aerodynamics.

That particular lesson was one of the few that really stuck with me and shaped me to this day when dealing with all these “claims”. It directly effects me now even because salesmen and various marketing types are free to use all these terms and sell their “snake oil” but my world is solidly grounded in the laws of physics and math. I find myself often being in the undesirable position of them writing a check with their mouth that they expect me to cash with my @$$ so I have to push back.

[Beeman]

Wow..

If I could have written letters like that, I probably wouldn't have gone though so many GF's in the past.

All points noted. Thanks for the run down.

*Edit - letters that are the same in length, not content. :P "Dear honey, Did you know that ANSI 50 HD chain is....."

[North Country Tough]

Thanks M&M you have gave me lots to thinks about,all things being equal I now believe that this bearing setup is superior to the long existing argo set upto a point, and a real world test in the conditions I use the vehicle in will tell the tale.N.C.T

[azz7772]

Holy CR@P my attention span will not even allow me to begin to read the novel that was just posted.

.

[mudNmallards]

Holy CR@P my attention span will not even allow me to begin to read the novel that was just posted.

Well, now you see why engineers are always kept in their locked rooms and fed with sling shots. If we get started conversing on a subject we will bore you to tears and melt your mind. The only reason they keep us around is because every once in a while someone may need us.