Friction coupling driveshaft

[mulepic]

Well I gave this idea one more try and it proved promising. It was similiar to the idea nathanschmoekel has above but instead of breaking the female shaft and using a rubber hose as the friction provider I broke the male shaft and used the rod that keeps the two male pieces aligned as the friction provider. I used a press fit of the male shaft to the aligning shaft. This worked well b/c it made sliding the female piece back and forth for the servo easy. But in the end there was either too much friction and the shafts wouldn't slip or too little and the car wouldn't climb the incline. I also improved on it by having 3 male pieces that were pressed onto the aligning shaft. This gave the ability to increase the friction incrementally by having the female shaft engage consecutive male pieces. But again, it just doesn't work.

I was really hoping this would take the advantage away that a MOA rig has to control the power to the rear axle via two ESC's. Maybe it's time to just go the MOA route.

[rn38]

Well a ball diff is adjustable from loose to locked or near locked like a sliper clutch. If I understand the theory behind the friction shafts if put in enough of a bind it would slip anyway. The ball diff would give similar results but I would really want to wait for the manually locking diffs. What I used to do when I ran a shaft is run tires with less grip in the rear and that would give the slip to keep the torque twist down and also keep the front down on inclines and verts where the rear would bite and pull the front back. It work alot like clod stall and similarly with the right throttle modulations would be beneficial. Well good luck with the project, I've been working on the same theory for a good year until I did the tire trick and then got a berg.