A small pneumatics spreadsheet

[GeeTwo]

Originally Posted by WorldShaper

Thanks for the feedback GeeTwo!

Always a pleasure to help someone trying to help! Especially someone applying physics knowledge! (My BS and MS are in physics).

Originally Posted by WorldShaper

Well now that you say that, its totally obvious.

So's the wheel, but no one seemed to use it much until a very few thousand years ago. I didn't invent this rule of user interface, just passing it along.

Originally Posted by WorldShaper

I've edited the original post to contain a spreadsheet that does just that, using Power Factor (Bimba's name for surface area, who knows why) and stroke length.

As I'm sure you know, the force produced by a piston extending is (ignoring friction) F=Pa, where P is pressure and a is the area. Most typically in the US F is in lbf and P in psi, so the natural unit for a is square inches. Force Factor would be a more accurate name for a, but I'm speculating that the marketing folks at Bimba thought Power Factor sounds more impressive (and inaccuracy aside, I concur). The bottom line is that publishing the "Power Factor" and even making it a central element of the part number makes it easy for engineers (including amateurs, hobbyists, and FRC teams) to figure out what diameter piston their actuator should have.