Bimba Piston Resource
 

So I have tried
http://www.bimba.com/CAD/
and
http://www.firstcadlibrary.com/
Does anyone have a trick for using Bimba pistons in their CAD models? Im using Autodesk Inventor 2012 if that matters.

Re: Bimba Piston Resource
 

The first link should give you a variety of formats, at least one of which is importable to Inventor. STEP would certainly work, but I think they also have Inventor's native format (we use Solidworks, so we download the native files :-) ).

One quirk with the site is that you need to use Internet Explorer or it doesn't properly select (it might even be generating) the cylinder model according to the specs you enter in.

It's also perhaps a bit tricky to navigate, but you can search for a part number (haven't actually used that, not sure how well it works). If you're looking for the line that they offer for free to FRC teams, that's under Non-repairable stainless steel cylinders/Original Line. They also have a complete catalog of their pneumatic actuators at http://bimba.com/Catalog/Download/, which may help you find the model you want to use in your design, nail down the part number, and then nab it off their CAD site.

Hope that helps.

Re: Bimba Piston Resource
 

With regards to the BIMBA Cylinders, I CADed one manually and used derivative parts for any other cylinders we used. Most non-repairables are made of 4 parts, the rear cap, top cap, piston and body. The caps are standard with any length. For the Piston and Body, you can simply enter either a measured length or a calculated length. From that point, if you use Inventor, make the assembly flexible. This allows the cylinder to be viewed in multiple positions as a subassembly. In other words, you can extend/contract it without opening up the part.
If you would like my .ipt's for BIMBA non-repairables, I'd be happy to let you have them.
Good Luck!

Re: Bimba Piston Resource
 

Sweet, thank you guys, a great resource for me is the www.firstcadlibrary.com has an iPart for piston bodies, (sorry Solidworks users) then you just have to calc out and model the piston itself, way cool!:D

Re: Bimba Piston Resource
 

Can we please stop calling them pistons? They are cylinders. There is a piston but it is part of the cylinder assembly.
Thanks

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(Grumpy Old Men for Correct Pneumatic Part Nomenclature)

Re: Bimba Piston Resource
 

They're actually called actuators ;) ... and the normal ones you see on FIRST robots are called linear actuators.

The cylinder is the outer Cylindrical portion of the linear actuator.
The piston is the moving parts (moving seal, also called piston head, and the rod)

Bimba uses pressed in (press fit) end caps to seal each end to the cylinder, rubber seals to seal the rod to endcap and moving seal (aluminum disk with rubber o-ring). Because of this setup you should never allow the moving seal to slam against the endcap as it will eventually unseat the end cap (possibly with catastropic results).

Bimba also supplies rotory actuators to FIRST teams, which is essentially 2 linear actuators and a rack and pinion system.



(Lifetime member of GOMCPPN)

Re: Bimba Piston Resource
 

Been playing with pneumatics since I was 14 years old (and that's a very long time) and I have never heard a cylinder called an actuator. Used as a type of actuator or in a actuator assembly yes but when you search the catalogs you don't look for actuators you look for cylinders.