Thanks to the TechnoKats.

[Ken Leung]

Originally posted by gwross

Sorry Ken, but I'm having a hard time visualizing what you're describing here with the "'plus' ... perpendicular to the ... metal strip". Are you describing the way the Technocats oriented their servo? If I study their drawings, will I be able to figure out what you're talking about?

Sorry for the weird worded example... It was the only thing I could think of @ 3:30am in the morning.

Anyway, I was refering to the servo shifter technokats have in the white paper section. You see, on the servo, you can put different "heads" onto the servo output shaft, they come with the servo motors inside a little zip-lock bag.

So the "plus" shape is one of the many head you can use for the servo, and put littie screw on it to engage the sliding block that do the actual shifting motion.

When the servo attachment lis locking the drill transmission in one of the positions, my idea is to have the attachment pointing straight at the metal strip, forming a 90 degrees angle between the strip and the servo arm.

This way, when the transmission want to drop out of gear, the metal strip is pushing against the servo arm pointing at it, and there will be little moment generate by this set up to backdrive the servo itself.

My point is, design your mechanisms such that you avoid back driving the little servo as much as possible. Have the servo activate a lock or some sort... Chances are, your lock will hold more force than the servo.