233 telescoping arms how do they work?

[Tom Line]

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.

[coalhot]

Originally Posted by Tom Line

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.

I'm not sure. The closest photo I could find is this.

Maybe someone from 254 or 233 could chime in, or you could spend about an hour looking at old 233 posts. I remember coming across a thread where 233 explained how their arm extended and operated (2007 version). Also, 254 talked about how theirs worked in the 7 second climb revel thread.

If I remember correctly (and don't quote me on this), 233 used a spring extend, while 254 didn't.

[ablatner]

I remember it's a single belt going all the way through that's fixed to the stage that extends the most. I could figure out the belt path and pulleys from memory, but I'd have to spend some time drawing it out.

[DampRobot]

Originally Posted by Tom Line

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.

[coalhot]

Also, specifics on this thread link

Spending a few minutes searching can get you a long ways along...