View Single Post
  #4   Spotlight this post!  
Unread 09-05-2013, 00:28
DampRobot's Avatar
DampRobot DampRobot is offline
Physics Major
AKA: Roger Romani
FRC #0100 (The Wildhats) and FRC#971 (Spartan Robotics)
Team Role: College Student
 
Join Date: Jan 2012
Rookie Year: 2010
Location: Stanford University
Posts: 1,277
DampRobot has a reputation beyond reputeDampRobot has a reputation beyond reputeDampRobot has a reputation beyond reputeDampRobot has a reputation beyond reputeDampRobot has a reputation beyond reputeDampRobot has a reputation beyond reputeDampRobot has a reputation beyond reputeDampRobot has a reputation beyond reputeDampRobot has a reputation beyond reputeDampRobot has a reputation beyond reputeDampRobot has a reputation beyond repute
Re: 233 telescoping arms how do they work?

Quote:
Originally Posted by Tom Line View Post
I understand the structure - the roller bearings and ball bearings etc.

How exactly are the belts driven and cascaded through the system? I'm not seeing how they are connected or function.
Imagine a single stage system for simplicity. The belt is pulled by a pulley at the bottom of the "zeroth" stage, and runs over a idler at the top of the zeroth stage. The belt then connects to the bottom of the first moving stage. When the stages are together, the length of the belt is ~2*stage length. When the first stage is extended, the length of the belt is ~1*stage length. Retraction works in the opposite way.

A two stage system works similarly, but with the bottom and top of the first stage being idlers, and the belt being connected to the bottom of the second stage.

I believe there's a pretty good paper on CD-Media which explain all of this in more detail.
__________________
The mind is not a vessel to be filled, but a fire to be lighted.

-Plutarch