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Unread 22-12-2015, 17:37
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GeeTwo GeeTwo is offline
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FRC #3946 (Tiger Robotics)
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Re: A small pneumatics spreadsheet

Neat stuff! A few suggestions that pop out at me:
  • The air volumes are huge! The first sheet has a 12 cubic foot tank - that's almost 90 gallons, or bigger than some whole FRC robots. Typical cylinders used in FRC range from about .0005 cubic feet (3/4" diameter, 2 inch stroke to 0.065 cubic feet (2" diameter, 36" stroke).
  • It would be great if the cylinder volumes were calculated from diameter and stroke (and possibly diameter of the shaft for the return stroke). Whenever feasible, spreadsheet or other UI inputs should be numbers available on the manufacturer's data, without requiring a lot of user pre-calculation.
  • For small cylinders and long tubing, the length of tube from the solenoid valve to the cylinder should enter into this. It doesn't do any work, but it does use up air.
  • For the versions with the compressor, are you assuming that the compressor will run continuously through the match? This is usually not a good idea. I also need to go back to see if your spreadsheet "turns off the compressor" when at full pressure. If you incorporate this, you should add the pressure at which the switch goes on as well as off.
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Last edited by GeeTwo : 22-12-2015 at 17:40.