Quote:
Originally Posted by craigboez
As an offseason project, I'm considering developing a non-pneumatic shifter for the Vex Pro ball shifters. It would seem that the pneumatic cylinders supplied with the kit provide more than enough force to use reliably, and servo setups have been attempted a few times without success. Somewhere in the middle is the tipping point between sufficient force and not enough.
Has anyone collected data on how much force is required to engage the ball shifter under load?
Has anyone used a non-pneumatic means of shifting the ball shifters that they'd like to share?
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What application will this ball shifter be for? I knew teams this year that used it for a winch mechanism, for which the pancake cylinder provided (3/4" bore, 1/2" stroke) was not enough force. I'm going to go ahead and assume drivetrain, though.
The main reason that a lot of teams use pneumatics is because they are very quick. Shifting with a window motor or servo wouldn't be ideal since motors don't store energy, so it could take a lot of time to shift. An added consequence of that would be offset between left and right gearboxes in shifting, something you don't want.
Aside from that if your heart is set on motor shifting, Andymark has made a shifter that I would look at to see how they shift with servos:
http://www.andymark.com/product-p/am-sonicoptions.htm.