problems with pneumatic tubing in telescoping arm

[johnnymac4545]

Our robot is currently designed to use a pneumatic grabber at the end of a telescoping arm. Right now we are currently in a fix as to how we would be able to have the tubing telescope in and out with arm, as well as how to store it when retracted. Any help would be great, thanks.

[russell]

Earlier there was a thread about coiling the tubing. Apparently you may not purchase coiled tubing, but you may coil the kit tubing. I dont know how one would do this besides using a heat gun (which I would think isnt legal, but I dont know), so I really cant be of much help, but try searching for "coiling pneumatic tubing" or something along those lines.

[petek]

From what I've gathered from the FRC Q&A regarding pneumatic tubing, it looks like we're only allowed to use the 20 m of tubing which came in the kit. Which will probably be a big problem at inspection, since I've seen that quite a few teams are using non-kit tubing.

I would be very wary of trying to coil the tubing yourself unless you have a way to wrap in on a heated mandrel - with controlled heat. Heating with a heat gun is likely to overheat the tubing and create kinks and weak points.

ID: 1641 Section: 5.3.4 Date Answered: 2/15/2005
Q: In reference to 1609, Are we limited to ONLY using the 20 meters of pneumatic tubing provided in the Kit of Parts? Therefore, we CANNOT use equivalent tubing with equivalent specs, but different colors. Am I correct in this assumption?
A: Correct.

ID: 1407 Section: 5.3.10 Date Answered: 2/3/2005
Q: Question ID 1179 did not answer the question. After much discussions there has not been a concensus as to whether 1/4" coiled hose can be used for expansion reasons? We would like to see a yes or no answer please.
A: No. It does not pass the 2005 Part Use Flowchart for a fitting or a valve.

The so-so news:
ID: 1671 Section: 5.3.10 Date Answered: 2/17/2005
Q: In response to question 1407, may we make our own coiled tubing out of the tubing provided in the KOP?
A: Yes.

[Alex Minot]

You will have to try and design a service loop

[Chris Fultz]

We used long lengths of tubing last year for a gripper at the end of our telescoping arm.

We zip-tied the two pneumatic tubing lines going to the cylinder about every 6 inches to keep them together. Then we used a short length of the surgical tubing to help it "recoil" when we lowered the arm.

It worked well and we did not have any kinks or binds in the tubing.

I would NOT try to heat the tubing to make it into a coil. You will most likely damage the walls and then fail the tube just when you need it.

[Squirrelrock]

one other way to telescope your tubing would be to make a small hollow rectangular prism (say, 4" x tube width x length of non-telescoping part of arm) and push the tube in and out of this box to keep it from kinking or coiling. (see attachment) the red is nearest the bottom, and the blue is nearest the top. Because the tubing cannot (reference top view) go outside of the box, it must "coil" in and out.

Just a thought from the middle of VUS History.

Squirrel