Designing with Pneumatics-Catcher

[PaulEleven]

Originally Posted by BBray_T1296

It is good practice to design a pneumatic implementation such that the cylinder has NO loading other than in the push/pull vector. The cylinders are only designed with those forces in mind, and while they are materialistically capable of minor cross-forces, over time they could bend and warp, which is bad news.

As a general rule, if you are designing a system that demands forces other than along the the push/pull line of action, other components of the system need to handle those besides the pneumatic pistons themselves.

A go-to mechanism I always prefer is cascading drawer sliders, you can get these in oodles of lengths and loading capacities, with compact, reliable, and robust construction, and they sell them at Home Depot and Lowe's, or lots of places online

Good thing you guys got to us before we built this thing, I was quite afraid of this.