How to construct a turret?

[waialua359]

Originally Posted by Elgin Clock

We built an award winning & published turret system in 2006.

http://www.chiefdelphi.com/media/photos/33185

http://www.chiefdelphi.com/media/photos/25671

It was a custom lazy susan application with two plates. One on top of the other & a LOT of small plastic ball bearings riding in a grooved track between the two.

A motor driven wheel (shown below the plate on the left of the image) drove the top wheel & allowed everything on top of that including the motor driven shooter wheel to turn with ~340 degrees of motion.

The only reason we couldn't turn a full 360 degrees or beyond is because we had cables running up to the shooter motor we couldn't safely route around the turret as it spun.

The ~340 degrees was plenty of a range of motion we desired though in this instance.

If you can get a copy of the FIRST Robots: Behind the Design book from 2006, it is featured in there with a more in depth explanation.

Nice work!