I ran across this sweet little Tamiya gearbox while surfing today.

Available from TowerHobbies for $13.19 and Pololu for $16.50.



It's pretty compact. I can see gutting our axle housings and mounting this in there somewhere.

This versatile, high-efficiency gearbox lets you build one of the following gear ratios: 11.6:1, 29.8:1, 76.5:1, 196.7:1, 505.9:1, and 1300.9:1. Whatever your application, chances are that one of the configurations will do the job. A clutch gear protects the gearbox in high-gear-ratio configurations so that the gearbox doesn't rip itself apart if the output shaft gets stuck.

I think the RE-260 might be upgradable to a 280, but someone will have to verify. The RE-260 runs on 3-6V only. Here's the Mabuchi RE-260 datasheet. With the available gear ratios, the RE-260 might be just fine.

there are definately some possibilities with that gear box...I don't see why you would need to even swap the motors out...just step down the voltage inline.

Very cool. It gets the gears in my head turning .

Wow, what a great idea!!