Sonic Shifter

The Sonic Shifter has been 1519's preferred drive base gearbox for most of a decade, starting in 2014 and continuing through the 2019 FRC game. We love the durable construction, good performance, ratio versatility, and minor evolutionary updates that were made over the years. By essentially re-using most of the components from the prior Super Shifter, and releasing minor updates from year-to-year, teams could reduce costs by re-using old gearboxes and just purchasing new upgrades when needed.

Oh, and did I mention that these gearboxes are tough as nails? I wouldn't be surprised if we have over 1000 hours of driving time on these gearboxes (250 hours in each of 4 years) and we've never had a gear, bearing, or shaft wear out. (We have had some issues with the pneumatic shift mechanism, but the core gearbox is as rugged as could be.)

We're sorry to see that this product is approaching end of life, as they have been the go-to gearbox for our best robots so far!

'Team 166 used these transmissions this year. At our Week 6 competition in Lewiston, the 17t gear in the last gear reduction split in half at the keyway, as the wall thickness at the minor diameter of the gear is about 0.060'. Many of the gears are keyed improperly, so that the corners of the keyway are at the minor diameter of the gear. We have destroyed three of the 17t gears this season. The gear in the right transmission broke in one of our last qualification matches in the Curie Division causing us to fall from 1st to 10th place, costing us the opportunity to create a powerful alliance. At the World Championship, I approached Andymark with our concerns regarding the 17t gear in particular, and I believe that is is unlikely that Andymark will do anything to improve the quality of this product. If you would like to see pictures of the broken gears, feel free to reach out to Chop Shop 166.

Email: [****]
Twitter: @chopshop166

(AndyMark Reply 05/31/16: Thank you for this informative review. We did talk to your team at the FIRST Championships, and we are sorry this part broke. We are working on a solution for this problem, but it may change the final ratio of the shifter gearboxes.)'

'My team wanted to order the set, but it was unavailable due to backorder. So we ordered one of the sonic shifter options along with some other items. The other items came in, but the shifters ended up on backorder. Everything turned out to be okay when they arrived except that we needed the shafts (which was a bummer because we really wanted to practice with the drive train to try out drivers and program and such). Our programming team wasn't as strong this year and had a difficult time adjusting to them. Our automatic shifting sounded like popcorn during a majority of our testing. This may have contributed to our main problem with them, the shafts continuously slip out of the gearbox. This prevents our encoders from functioning properly and compromises our shifting. We're not sure if this is due to misuse or product malfunction so we'd appreciate feedback from other teams who used the sonic shifters regarding this problem.'

'Our Sonic Shifters arrived with the long aluminum hex shafts as an option to use in place of the one in the shifter. These shafts are not usable because the quarter inch diameter portion that goes into the encoder is too short to actually reach the encoder, also my team has heard of other teams twisting their aluminum hex shafts in competition so we have had to spend significant time manufacturing parts that should not have to be made in the first place. Other than that problem the shifters themselves seem to be fine'

5 Stars