Introduction to Pneumatics

[Gerry Salinas]

Howdy everyone,

For someone, such as myself, who doesn't really have previous experience with pneumatics, where would a good place to start be if I wished to learn them - specifically, of course, learn them to the degree generally needed on a FIRST 'bot.

[Beth Sweet]

This (http://firstrobotics.uwaterloo.ca/resources/pneumatics.ppt) has worked fairly well for me and is pertained to FIRST pneumatics.

[Greg Needel]

there is also a website devoted to pneumatics in FIRST

http://www.pneumaticsfirst.org/

[Karthik]

This (http://firstrobotics.uwaterloo.ca/resources/pneumatics.ppt) has worked fairly well for me and is pertained to FIRST pneumatics.

.pdf version (http://firstrobotics.uwaterloo.ca/resources/pneumatics.pdf) of the above link.

[coastertux]

The manual also has some good pneumatics resources.

[Mark McLeod]

http://www.usfirst.org/robotics/2004/Workshops/2004_Pneumatics_presentation.pdf

http://www2.usfirst.org/2005comp/Manuals/2005PneumaticsManual.pdf

[ngreen]

The way I started that made it easy was to make a bread board (with help from a mentor at the time).

If you have parts from last year build a set-up like on the schematic pages. There are tons of pictures and resource to help and many have already been mentioned.

There are many different ways to set it up from hooking up the compressor and solenoid up to a battery and switches(WARNING: the pressure switch shouldn't be hooked up with the 12V battery and compressor) to run it or just using the tanks, manually switching soleniods, and filling the tanks another way (compressor off old robot)

The one I started with was the picture of a schematic and the manual that told a little about parts. I then had to dig further about some specific parts (solenoids, pressure regulator). Most of the information is in last years material on the FIRST website.

Nothing will be as easy as the real thing, but if you are a new team and don't have access to parts (other teams) I still reccommend looking at the pneumatics manual. And when you get your parts in January set up a bread board not only to get famialiar with the different parts but testing if your schematic works and checking for leaks (a lot easier off the robot).

[jerry w]

one of the topics in the pneumatics web pages is the drawing of schematics.
what drawing package do teams use for this schematic?
also, are there symbols available that would make this task easier?

jerry w