Hey, Jeff, great to hear from you!
Quote:
Originally Posted by jreuter
If you take a close look at the 2011 pnuematics manual, you will see flow control devices in both the schematic and photographs. The SMC NAS2201F-N01-07S flow control device was included in the 2008 KoP, and previous years, if I recall. We have some of these in our shop if your shipment doesn't arrive in time. Give me a call if you need them.
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That is great info, thank you. I noticed those elbow-shaped, flow-control, 1/8" NPT to 1/4" O.D. quick-release fittings in the 2011 pneumatics manual on Page 8 (diagram) and the photos (Pages 9-10), but until your message, I wasn't sure where to get those flow control fittings. I'm still a little confused why <R66> doesn't specifically list flow control fittings as an allowed pneumatics part. But the universal opinion here on this thread seems to be that flow control
fittings are allowed (falling under the category of "connecting fittings" in <R66> paragraph E), whereas flow control
valves (separate inline flow-control components) are not.

Anyway thanks so much for the SMC NAS2201F-N01-07S part number for those flow-control elbow fittings from the 2008 KOP and earlier. I just now ordered some, which should arrive in a few days. If we run into trouble receiving them, though, we might take you up on your offer to borrow a couple of them from your team, much appreciated!

One odd thing about using the flow control fittings on the cylinders themselves is that it seems like it will reduce the flow of air in both directions -- going into the cylinder in one direction, and exhausting from the cylinder in the other direction. We don't really want to slow down the flow of air into the cylinder, we're just trying to slow down the exhaust from the cylinder, to control the speed of the action. It seems like the ideal place to install a flow control fitting would be on the exhaust ports of the Festos, so that the flow control would only be used on the exhaust. In fact, I ordered and received some very nice
$3 flow control fittings specifically designed for the exhaust ports of solenoid valves. But when I received them, I remembered that the Festo valves have these odd port threads (they are 7mm threaded ports, if I remember correctly), rather than the 1/8" NPT threading that I assumed they had, so we will need to use some kind of fitting adapters if we want to use them.
Quote:
Originally Posted by jreuter
Also, you can indeed use separate Festos to switch between a high flow and low flow path, as long as you use a separate control signal for each one.
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Cool idea! We could start with a high flow path to raise our arm, and as it reaches the top, we could switch to a low flow path to slow down its motion so it won't slam so hard into the top.
Quote:
Originally Posted by jreuter
With regard to rapid on/off pulses to the Festos, 1073 did this in 2010 to provide software-control preload pressures in our kicker. I was amazed that the Festos were so responsive, but we got very repeatable results, with no observed reliability problems.
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That's great to know. We'll hold that idea in our bag of tricks as well.
Quote:
Originally Posted by jreuter
Good luck at Beantown!
-Jeff
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Many thanks! And if 1073 is going to the Beantown Blitz, good luck to you folks as well!
-- Randy