Use of Lead Screw

[pfreivald]

Originally Posted by nnfuller

I said that I as hesitant because of the fact that I cant find a robot that used one as an effective mode of lifting a large amount of force.

Our 2010 robot used a 3' lead screw to lift our robot two feet in the air during the end game. We used a four-start screw, shaft coupler, and thrust bearings from McMaster and a 12:1 reduction CIM (and lots of grease on the screw). It was extremely reliable (failing once at FLR because we used a set screw instead of a spring pin -- never again!), but took a few seconds.

The motion is smooth, but not tremendously fast. Inspired by our success, we used encoder-driven lead screws for our shoulder and elbow on our 2011 robot, and we should have used pneumatics for speed.