Giant Piston

[Kevin Selavko]

Our team was investigating pneumatic springs, similar to what Eric suggested, but partially filling the piston itself instead of a separate tank, then having a latch to release all of the pressure built up in the small volume of the partially extended piston. We had very good results with this technique, but we did not use as large of a piston as you, I think ours was 1-1.5". However we chose not to use this idea because we did not want to have all that force held in place by a latch, as we have had a lot of trouble with latches in the past.

[MrForbes]

spend some time looking at this robot....it shoots great, with two smaller cylinders (1.5 x 9" stroke)

https://sites.google.com/site/falcon...ots/2014-dream

[potatoshane]

I would try putting most of your tanks AFTER your regulator, instead of before your regulator so you won't be limited by the 60 psi. However, this would mean you probably need double the tanks you would normally need without a regulator.

But honestly, I would sugest a way smaller cylinder....

[Oblarg]

As mentioned, a single cylinder that big will have a very hard time shooting the ball in any design. Here are some tips if you wish to pursue other approaches:

1) Do not attempt to "punch" or "push" the ball straight off one cylinder. Even with tricks for getting cylinders in FRC to actuate quickly, you will have trouble getting any usable power out of this. The only direct-punchers with pneumatics that I've seen work are multi-stage, in that they have several pneumatics all actuating in series, so that the velocities add. Otherwise, you must use a catapult or some other device that allows you to multiply the effective velocity of your extending cylinder via. a lever arm.

2) Make sure you remove the fitting on the far end of your pistons. This requires that you reset the piston through non-pneumatic means (it effectively turns it into a single-acting cylinder with no spring return), but maximizing the size of that orifice will have a huge effect on actuation speed.

3) Keep tanks downstream of the regulator, one for each piston. The regulator is a massive bottleneck for airflow, and I've only seen a couple of designs shoot the ball well with all of the air flowing through it (most of them rely on funky geometry). You still want upstream tanks, since tanks at 60 PSI will obviously hold less air than tanks at 120PSI.

4) If you have the money, buy high-flow solenoids. We've found on 4464 that they're not really necessary to launch with pneumatics (we're scoring from 17+ feet away with the standard ones), but they do help.

5) If you can cope with the added complexity and hazard of a latch and large amounts of stored energy, and can't get it working through other means, try a precharged pneumatic as described earlier in the thread. Mind that for this to work, your "loaded" position should leave your piston partly extended, else you don't have any volume to actually precharge. I do not personally recommend these, as the forces involved are terrifying and it involves added complexity.

That said, my best advice, however discouraging, is that if you don't have anything close to launching the ball this late in build season, you probably want to abandon ball-launching as an option and focus on getting your robot in finalized, working order and giving your drivers practice. Focus on defense, possibly with a low-goal score option or a catcher. This is going to be a game which centers around robot-robot interaction; a good defensive bot will make or break alliances.

All the time you spend on a likely whole-system redesign for your shooter is time lost from ensuring that you field a working robot with capable drivers.