is this legal?
 

Is is legal to cut off the threaded attatchment part on a pneuamtic cylinder?
Here's a reference picture:

http://www.andrewsmachine.com/pneuma...ges/bimba3.jpg

Its the threaded part on the right end.

Thanks for your help!
Natalie, 604

Re: is this legal?
 

The short answer is, no.

Per R92:
Pneumatic components... ...can not be modified except as follows:
- Removing the pin from the rear of an air cylinder is allowed as long as the cylinder inself is not modified.
Do not, for example, file, machine, or abrasively remove any part of an air cylinder.

(I am assuming that you want to use the cylinder as a pneumatic component.) Is there another way that you're looking to mount the cylinder? I can't think of an advantage cutting off the mounting end would have... Maybe we can help you to determine a better/legal way to mount the cylinder?

Bengineer

Re: is this legal?
 

we're using two small ones(i dont know the exact stroke at the moment), one on each transmission.
unfortunately we didn't calculate the distance they would take up when actually fit into our chassis, so the backs(threaded parts) interfere with eachother when mounted.
It was a calculation error on our part, i think we might just have to go with a shorter stroke because its too late to adjust tranny plates and it would just be either a horrible mess or a pain(or both) to re-drill holes on our chassis to off-set the transmissions.

no worries =), thank you for your help!
natalie

Re: is this legal?
 

To over come this problem last year, we had an interface that offset the pneumatic cylinders on each side of the transmission. see here

http://www.chiefdelphi.com/media/photos/27738

(the piston axis and the actual shifting axis aren't in line. it was the opposite on the other side so the cylinders would clear)

but we dont want to do that this year

Re: is this legal?
 

We avoided this problem this year by less than 1/4". We CAD'ed everything to make sure it'd fit beforehand and made our adjustments accordingly. It's pretty easy to make representations of everything in Solidworks/Inventor, as most of the complicated/exact pieces are already made for you on one website or another. For future reference I suppose.

If you shorten the stroke, won't put your gears at risk for not being fully engaged?

Re: is this legal?
 

You could keep the wheels in the same spot and offset the gearboxes by a slight amount so that the pistons no longer interfere. This is what we are doing and I have seen many teams do this.