Re: non-pneumatic "kicking" mechanism
 

If you put a servo-controlled barrier in the way of the pin, you can keep it from inadvertently getting to the point where the kicker linkage is released.

Re: non-pneumatic "kicking" mechanism
 

The time to kick is not very long so we just stop the motor after it kicks. Trying to put the motor in the exact position does not seem neccessary when we are moving around. When the kicker is not kicking it is out of the way.

Re: non-pneumatic "kicking" mechanism
 

We plan to use a rotary crank to charge the kicker spring. The crank wheel will be a sprocket with the teeth ground down to a ratchet profile. It will be driven by a crank with a pawl at the end. Therefore, it is only powered when the driveshaft rotates in one direction. At the other end of the same power shaft, we will have another pawl and ratchet device oriented the opposite direction and connected to a release and winch for lifting during the finale. The shaft is powered by the 5th CIM and driven via a non-backdrivable worm gear.

Rotate the drive motor one direction to power & fire the kicker, run it the other direction to deploy and power the lift.

The prototype seemed to work well. Should have the real thing done in a few days. We'll see how that one does...

We have a 30" wide capture & kick zone. It is uses a linear motion, "T" shaped, plunger hitting a wide, hinged "flap". We don't intend to do full-field-on-the-fly kicks. We think it will be important to acquire, aim, and kick (over at least one bump) as fast as possible.

Re: non-pneumatic "kicking" mechanism
 

How does your software know that the motor has just kicked so that it can stop the motor? Do you have some sort of sensor signal?


It's hard to tell from the low-res video, but it looks like the momentum of the kicker mass carries it outside the frame perimeter to kick the ball, and the kicker's "rest" position is somewhat "retracted" from the full extension of the kick. Is that correct? If so, that's a very interesting design... all the kicking energy comes from the kinetic energy of the mass (no residual assisting spring force on kicker at point of impact). Please set me straight if this is incorrect.


~

Re: non-pneumatic "kicking" mechanism
 

sounds great! We might try the flap thing....any hints about it?

Re: non-pneumatic "kicking" mechanism
 

We are experimenting with sensor to help determine when a ball is in position. But after the ball is kicked the driver just turns it off. The cycle time for the kicker will be >2seconds so if a few extra kicks happened it is no big deal(No penalties). When a ball is in position again we casn just turn on the kicker. As of right now the wait time of up to 2 seconds does not seem to be a problem. It seems to me at this point putting a sensor on to stop the motor would be doing it just to do it (which isn't a bad thing really).

Re: non-pneumatic "kicking" mechanism
 

Wow that is impressive. will you post a pic/video when it is finished?

Re: non-pneumatic "kicking" mechanism
 

It is about 26" wide and will be 1/4" lexan with weight reduction holes (right now it is thin plywood). The hinge (across the top) is about 9" off the floor. The bottom is about 2" off the floor. It has an "L" shaped cross section. The bottom leg of the L is about an inch long and is the "toe" that provides loft. The plunger contacts the back of the L about half way up. It has about 5" travel, half before contacting the flap. So far, it is powered with surgical tubing. We are flying the ball about 15 feet with about 3 feet loft.

We hope have the rest of the final hardware done and installed early next week. We'll try to post pictures or video - but only if it works right!

Re: non-pneumatic "kicking" mechanism
 

Going back to the original question, we abandoned pneumatics early on as not be fast enough to get full range kicking. I have a nice idea for getting a variable kicking range from a pneumatic cylinder, but we will not be trying it this year. We also gave up on the surgical tubing as not having enough pull. Perhaps we should reconsider with more strands or thicker tubing? We are currently using steel extension springs connected to the top of the kicker, eliminating the need to have something whip around a pulley at kicking speeds. We are planning on a CIM powered winch to pull the kicker back a variable distance and then a -censored- to release it.

Mike

Re: non-pneumatic "kicking" mechanism
 

We finally got our mechanical kicking system going, sort of. But the plan is to use pneumatics to release it, unless we can come up with something else (linkage on a window motor is the other likely candidate).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rId6Lnw-Hl4

This is the first time we got it working, and we need to figure out the control system, work on the "pulley", and install the release.

Comments welcome!

Re: non-pneumatic "kicking" mechanism
 

Here is ours
cam stile o yeah lol.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sfc7erbtuoE

Really love it squirrel. Are you using pneumatics some place else? Maybe you could bolt it to a larger sprocket and open it with a motor to save the weight if not.

edit: My bad didn't read it the whole way through lol.

Re: non-pneumatic "kicking" mechanism
 

http://www.chiefdelphi.com/media/photos/34748

Here is a picture of the 1918 quad drive as of Feb 8. The cable, release, and routing mechanism are not in place yet. We will use a more strands of tubing and there will be a limit switch to hold the firing device at the ready. As shown, the bands are about 1/3 charged.

Re: non-pneumatic "kicking" mechanism
 

Very well done multi-functional design . We are also doing similar heavy gear down tension winder, that will double as our lifting winch too.
Have you found that you really need to use the dog sprocket to prevent max tension from causing wind back of gearbox (when motor de-energized)? We have a big sprocket if we need it, but I was hoping 200+:1 ratio geardown would make it unnecessary.
-Dick Ledford

Re: non-pneumatic "kicking" mechanism
 

The ratchet mechanisms ("dog sprocket"?) aren't there to prevent back-driving. They allow the same drive motor/gearbox to power two separate devices, depending on the direction of rotation. The ratchets are oriented in opposite directions. The worm drive gearbox (Dayton 15:1 unit we bought through Grainger) prevents back-driving.