HELP Elevator/Lift!!!
 

Our team has decided on an elevator/ lift mechanism to pick up tubes from the feeder slot. We want to have something like a an aluminum L- shaped hook that rides up and down an upright Aluminum Drawer rail near the front of our robot.

We have also decided that in order to reach the middle and high pegs, we will need to have the hook ride up the full 58-60", and then have that Aluminum Drawer ride up another aluminum drawer in order to extend another 58-60".

We want to use two pulleys with two separate motors (One for the elevator/ hook for the first 60" and the other pulley for the middle aluminum drawer rail for the other 60")

I need some help on implementing this idea...what kind of parts would I need? How exactly can I make the elevator/ hook ride up the middle aluminum drawer rail, etc. Any advice will be HEAVILY appreciated! Thank you all very much!

This picture is something along the lines of what we want to do...but without the "pneumatic wrist"
http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/at...4&d=1294553422

Re: HELP Elevator/Lift!!!
 

that stuff that robot in the link uses is called 80/20. Google it and check it out. I would also reccomend looking at team robots from past games, especially from 2008. I remember a lot of fork lifts back then.

Re: HELP Elevator/Lift!!!
 

Here are some robot examples of elevators:

http://dulaneyrobotics.com/component...hesapeake3.jpg

http://dulaneyrobotics.com/component...ld/build-8.jpg

There are some different ways you could go. A wire rope spool to pull the elevator, chain on sprockets mounted to the sliders.

Re: HELP Elevator/Lift!!!
 

The elevator design your referring to has two moving stages... and believe it or not, you can power both stages with a single motor! We built a similar elevator in 2008, and it looks like the team is leaning that direction again.

http://www.chiefdelphi.com/media/photos/30267
http://www.chiefdelphi.com/media/photos/35975
http://www.chiefdelphi.com/media/photos/35974

In order to power it with just one motor, you need to think through how the pulley's and the cable that lifts it moves. It starts near the bottom, and runs up to a pulley on a stationary cross member (this pulley never moves). From there, it runs down to a pulley on the outer-most moving stage. If you were to just tie it off here, it would life that stage up. But, since you go around a pulley there, you can send that up to a pulley at the top of the same stage. The distance between these two pulleys is fixed, since they are part of the same stage. From there, you run it down to the inner-most moving stage, and tie it off.

When you end up powering the motor, the inner-most (smallest) stage moves first. When it gets to the top, then the middle (the outermost moving) stage moves. In the end, the whole thing extends!

Attached is a quick diagram of how the cable runs work. The blue is the cable, and the gray is each stage. White circles for the pulleys, a big black circle where the cable gets tied off.

Re: HELP Elevator/Lift!!!
 

This is very interesting my team has always used pneumatics for our elevators but are considering something with pulleys for this year.

Re: HELP Elevator/Lift!!!
 

what did you use for bearings for the inner most stage riding on the outer stage?

Re: HELP Elevator/Lift!!!
 

I'm not sure what the exact product was, but we used the same items for each stage. We built small brackets that could hold the rollers/bearings outside the adjacent stage, holding the whole thing together. You can see them about 2/3 of the way up the picture here:
http://www.chiefdelphi.com/media/photos/35975

The rollers are white, and duplicated front and back. The innermost stage has the rollers attached to itself on both top and bottom to hold it inside the middle stage, while the middle stage only has rollers attached to the bottom (extending out to wrap around the outer, stationary stage), while the outer stage has rollers at the top to wrap around the middle stage. This way, the inner stage remains completely within the middle stage at all times, while the wheels at the bottom of the middle stage approach the wheels from the top of the outer stage, holding it in place as the stage raises above the outer stage.

Re: HELP Elevator/Lift!!!
 

Lots of pics here, nicely organized: http://www.firstroboticscanada.org/site/node/96

Re: HELP Elevator/Lift!!!
 

Here's one that our team made in 2008. The video is not excellent quality, however.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LMIwLd9GLh0

Re: HELP Elevator/Lift!!!
 

http://d1pytrrjwm20z9.cloudfront.net...atorDesign.pdf
This presentation by Andy Baker is VERY HELPFUL. Talks in general about manipulator designs and goes a little into the pro/cons and basic designs of each, including the elevator lift!