Is Anyone Using Motors to Hoist themselves off the platform on the bar?

[xxlshortys]

I was wondering if anyone was using motors to hoist themselves up off the platform onto the bar, and what kind of motor they were using. We tried ours yesterday without success, and were trying to be efficient with the time we have left to solve the problem.

If anyone has any suggestions let us know, i believe pneumatics are out of the question because we are using them in another system. (but that could always change)

[Sam J.]

Our team is using the vandoor motor to lift us up to the bar, with the built in gearing system. However, a few weeks ago, I came across a thread that someone said something to the fact that they would see "many vandoor and window motor winches". What motor are you using anyway?

[xxlshortys]

Well we were using a fisher price motor

[Jeremiah Johnson]

our team is using a drill motor to hoist us up. we had some slippage at first but then we used pulleys to minimize the tension and it now works perfectly. we are also going up from the floor not the base.

[xxlshortys]

I thought about that but our drill motors are already being used for our transmission,

[Daniel Brim]

I was wondering if anyone was using motors to hoist themselves up off the platform onto the bar, and what kind of motor they were using. We tried ours yesterday without success, and were trying to be efficient with the time we have left to solve the problem.


What was the problem? Was the motor backdriving? We are using an FP motor with a ratchet system. The ratchet is complicated to machine, we used a waterjet.

[Madison]

I think it'd be helpful to us if you described the problem you're having in a bit more depth.

Did the motor stall? What diameter drum are you using for this device...which I presume is some sort of winch? Did the motor backdrive? Is there any gearing, or is the motor directly driving the lifting mechanism?

[phrozen solyd]

Our winch is driven by the output shaft of our drive train.

[Joe Ross]

We are using the van door motors. The diameter of the winch is 5/8" and it doesn't backdrive

[andy]

Were using the globe motor direct driving a 1 inch shaft, supported on both sides by the kit pillow blocks that are bloted to the frame. The ratchet mechanism is top secret :D

Good luck!

-Andy

[ngreen]

We are using the van door motors. The diameter of the winch is 5/8" and it doesn't backdrive

Same here. We have a ratchet we can add if we need to but we haven't had too. The van door motor works great if you rotate it around a small diameter. And the small diameter will make backdriving more difficult. Especially with braking.

Close to your andy too. We used the pillow blocks with the 5/8" shaft. And our ratchet is top secret too.

[Kevin Sevcik]

Well top secret rachets are all nifty and all, but we're using a window motor driving a winch that we bought at a boat store. If you're in a time crunch, which you must be by now, I think this is your quickest option. Just go to a boat store, look for a lightweight winch with a removeable handcrank that looks like it'll be easy to adapt the van door or window lift motor to.

[Robert Hafner]

We've got two globe motors pulling us up with an interesting pully system (something like 20 feet of chain. . .)

[ZykoN]

we are usign the van door motor, with a very unique way of pullign us up. we are suign 2 mechanisms, one is a ball screw($400 unit, thanks NOOK for the free screw :D :D :D ) and that drives up 1 section, that causes a system of cables to move, causign anuther part to extend, witch dose the same thign, causing another to extend. we are usign an electronic sprign pin system to hold it up after the power is cut(an idea to use a spinnign fly wheel to power it, but too heavy)

evryone seems to be usign winches.....not a winch or a chain on the whole thing

[Jonathan M.]

We're using Window motors to lift the arm up and down and a smaller motor (van door maybe?) to release the hook. The arm then muscles up using the window motor. It's efficiant and not very heavy. Today was a scrimage and we hanged very well. Other teams had problems or were too slow. However 343 was quite good at it as well. And another one I can't recall wasn't bad either. :)

[pras870]

My team chose to use the seat motor with a 2:1 gear reduction, works perfectly, a little slow though, but it's not comin down after we're up there :)

[Robert Hafner]

The first picture shows the motors (I drew in arrows to show you which two out of the three drive the bar) and the othe picture kind of shows you the pully system on the bar (its the best picture I have at the moment or the system).

The last picture is us hanging from the bar at the end of the match.

[Rickertsen2]

Alot of people seem to forget that you can use any motor depending on how you gear it. Alot of people also seem to forget that you don't have to lift yourself 9ft in the air. a cm or so will do. Why does speed really matter in this case. If you can lift yourself 1 cm in a few secs why does it matter as long as you are hanging. Perhaps i am missing somethign here.

[jacob_dilles]

we are using the same vandoor motor that lifts our arm to lift the bot. it can pull the robot ALL the way up, but we probably wont. its a pretty powerfull little motor

[OneAngryDaisy]

aight.. i don't really want to disclose all our information, but we're using a combo of 3 motors to hang. two were designed to multitask performing another function then getting us up there, and the third is our winch (window). All i can say is it takes us a second to get up there- literally. and not just on the platform or steps too :P (i actually shot something through the ceiling when i misgeared a motor)

[ngreen]

and not just on the platform or steps too

You got my attention. I want to know more. I guess I will just have to wait. Such a teaser of a statement. I've been wanting to see who would take the challenge of lifting themselves without being on the platform or first step.

[OneAngryDaisy]

i'll ask my mentors if I can upload a picture of it tomorrow... even a short movie to accompany it..

hint: think Diablo 2002 or Beatty/Brazilian Machine 2003

[ngreen]

i'll ask my mentors if I can upload a picture of it tomorrow... even a short movie to accompany it..

If not upload, I could make a PM trade on the agreement no one else would see. You wouldn't have a chance to see our bot til championships and I would still like to see how it works. I don't have team permission to upload pictures even though I think we should. But I can make private trades. I know it seems sneaky but I have no say.

[xxlshortys]

Okay, well back to my question and problem

We have a wench style system, with a van door motor driving the pivot arm and a fisher price motor with the plastic gearbox to drive the wench. When we attempted to pull using only the wench we were able to get half of the base off the ground before the motor started smoking, and we do not currently have a locking system of any sort to keep it suspended in the air.

We tried using the window motor to hoise ourselves with the pivot but that did not work either.

I believe we are making a different size wench and probably switching the fisher price motor.

If you ahve any more comments, suggestions, or questions i'd appreciate it with the crunch on time.

[ngreen]

You can reduce the size of your winch. If you are using the winch with the fisher-price it might not be enough.

[dlavery]

We were going to use a big wench to pull us up onto the bar. But that led to imagining ourselves in scenes from bad English Robin Hood movies, and pretending to be brawling Musketeers, and playing Renaissance Faire, and thinking all sorts of bawdy thoughts, and then she got really upset with the whole idea of wearing that silly corseted costume... :)

http://pages.ripco.net/~zski/greenblack.jpg
So instead we got back to working on the robot, and developing a winch system to reel us up off the ground.

-dave

(sorry, I just couldn't resist :) )

[Elgin Clock]

Motors... Well, since the compressor is defined as a motor, then maybe.
Sort of I guess...:rolleyes:

[Joe Ross]

All i can say is it takes us a second to get up there- literally. and not just on the platform or steps too :P (i actually shot something through the ceiling when i misgeared a motor)

You have verified that you meet the 10 ft/sec rule, right?

[xxlshortys]

Speed will matter, but very little though. Speed will be an issue during the last seconds of the game.

[Arefin Bari]

we are using a globe motor... the arm looks great... :D

[bigqueue]

We do the actual lifting with a Van Door motor....but we position our hook with the lift motor.

I think our system is pretty straight forward.....but I have a question. Does the VAN door motor have a thermal overload protection PTC in it? Does anyone have the specs on it, and how it cuts out. (vs load?)

Thanks,
-Quentin
:ahh:

[thoughtful]

hey,

how powerful is the Denso-Window motor, and which motor do you guys think of the most strong one. Can a single Window Motor lift the whole robot up(130 lbs), if no than which one can. I know this is a lat to be asking this.

We had a mechasim that uses a single window motor to move an pivoted arm, with a light grabber, but when we hold on the ball the thing wont go up. But it works pretty good when not holding on ball. Also the arm is about 56 inch, but if we put the ball at about 30 inch it work okay. THe arm is mounted on a 60 teeth sprocket(drilled through and bolted) the window motor has a 20 sprocket so basically a 3:1 ratio. Any comments to help us on this, fast replies will be appreciated.

[ngreen]

The window motors seem to have a lot of play. We used them for our arm last year to grab tubs. I see a lot of people using the van door or globe motors.. I think these are better choices. We are using the van door motors.

[thoughtful]

how many VAN door are you using. 1 or 2

[bigqueue]

how many VAN door are you using. 1 or 2


We only use one....isn't that all we received in the kit.

-Quentin

[ngreen]

We only get one and two would be a waste of weight anyways.

[OneAngryDaisy]

You have verified that you meet the 10 ft/sec rule, right?

Yes, some calculations from the end of the pole to the bar revealed that our pole moves at around 8 feet per second. However, since it is located rather high (approaching 5 feet), it takes pretty much a second to hit the bar with correct positioning on the floor.

here are some videos of the pole in action

http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/showthread.php?t=25933