CAD files for elevator design
 

This is my first year in robotics and working with Inventor. I would like to see some elevator design to prepare for next year's robot. Does anyone have any cad files they can send, or descriptions of elevator systems that worked really well?

Re: CAD files for elevator design
 

The tower we used for our robot works pretty well (my very humble opinion, of course!).

(This assumes you have Autodesk Inventor 8 or later):
The CAD files are pretty large, and the assemblies consist of quite a few files, so your best bet is to download them from Autodesk's Streamline Site [username "(public)" , include parentheses, but not quotes, leave password blank]. If you go to the Student Upload area, you can download the Inventor files from our team's entry (0103).

Re: CAD files for elevator design
 

Are you looking for how people did it in Inventor or how teams did it on their robot? You could peruse the picture arcives and teh robot showcase section for pics.

As far as how they did it in Inventor, it dependes on the setup. It looks like petek used prefab Alumium angle with holes in it on the robot, so made an extrustion to the right length and patterened a hole on the sides to make it heve the holes. (this is how I would do it, atleast). Our bot's arm was made out of sheet metal (Here) and I used the sheetmetal tools that Inventor provides. Each section came in 2 parts (so they could be bent and assembled correctly).

If it is a prefab part (like those crazy extruded alumium pieces that are so nifty and my team won't use) you might be able to find it at First CAD Library . It hasn't been updated for a while, so check CD to see if the new site I got people started with will pan out.

Re: CAD files for elevator design
 

We used an elevator system on our robot this year and should have some CAD models at school somewhere. I will get with the CAD leader and see what he can do for you.

Re: CAD files for elevator design
 

We used a part elevator part 2 axis arm. Our CAD files (available for download) are located here.

Good luck and feel free to ask any questions.

-Daniel

Re: CAD files for elevator design
 

We (team 343, Metal in Motion) have designed one that is working quite well. You can see it in our Autodesk Inventor entry on our site, www.metalinmotion.com. Our CAD files are also on the Streamline site at Autodesk.

Re: CAD files for elevator design
 

We used a similar design as Petek described. 1x2 80-20 with some linear brackets and a chain drive. As for the chain drive on our bot, we needed the space between the uprights to be clear so we moved the chain to the outsides. A van door motor drives a chain that is fixed at one point to the lower extension. (see our gallery) A shaft spans the towers to allow an even force to be exerted on each side. A window motor is mounted in a similar fashion to the smaller, 1x1 80-20 upper extension, except it drives a sprocket that travels up and down a fixed chain, rather than the chain moving around a stationary sprocket. The result is an extremely stable, relatively quick forklift mechanism that can go from as low as 16" to as high as 11-12'. It's not as cool as 173's awsomazing teloscoping arm, but we still won the GM Industrial design award in large part due to this mechanism.

Re: CAD files for elevator design
 

I tried to download CAD files at this site, but all the files were corupted when I downloaded them. Do you have any suggestions or alternative ways to acquire CAD files?

Re: CAD files for elevator design
 

What do you mean by "corrupted"? I downloaded them about a week ago without any problem. They are in Inventor v8, so if you are using an earlier release you'll get an error message when you try to open them.

Re: CAD files for elevator design
 

The downloaded file (Team_0103_phase4.zip) gives me an error message saying the file is corrupted. The other file I can download (phase 1) is just pictures, not CAD files. I have Inventor 8, so I don't think that is the problem.

Re: CAD files for elevator design
 

Do you have any CAD files for this design, and if you do, where can I get them? Thanks.