pic: Uber Stinktier...

[Bob Steele]

Originally Posted by M. Krass

Do y'all have a way of rolling tubing to make the claw? We're trying to figure out a way of doing something similar ourselves.

The machine looks good. There're some interesting things happening there with the 18" stroke, 1.5" bore piston and the peculiarly placed van door motor.

We do have a way to roll tubing but we won't be using rolled tubing.
We made up layups to make the curved components from either carbon fiber or fiberglass... looking at the merits and weights of each right now.

It is a lift... a reclining lift...... two under jaws (the mandibles) and a upper "maxilla"
Three points of contact with the lower jaws articulated to close on the ball. The "maxilla" is also pneumatically operated and works in conjunction with the lower mandibles. There is also a tongue...

Jaws and maxilla are all pneumatically operated...hopefully automated closing based on input from a sonar sensor..

Taigene motor controls the cable system for the lift...

I will post a side view later...

Madison, we can roll tubing but it takes soft aluminum... it would probably have to be heat treated...we have a mock up in 3/4 X 1/8 wall that we are testing... let me know if we can help...

[Elgin Clock]

A friend of mine commented on how it looks like "a pope hat on wheels", and that's when it hit me..
Your team is playing chess this year!!!

Bishop ftw!



Btw, going with the tubing conversation, chromoly tubing is good if you have access to a shop that makes that kind of stuff.
(Any shops that design or fabricate chassis for race cars or bicycle frames near you by any chance?)

[Madison]

Originally Posted by Bob Steele

We do have a way to roll tubing but we won't be using rolled tubing.
We made up layups to make the curved components from either carbon fiber or fiberglass... looking at the merits and weights of each right now.

Madison, we can roll tubing but it takes soft aluminum... it would probably have to be heat treated...we have a mock up in 3/4 X 1/8 wall that we are testing... let me know if we can help...

Ah, I see. Our gripper base is designed to accept anything as large as 1x1" square tubing -- and to allow replacing it quickly when it gets mangled to Hell. We've got 1x1x1/16" on hand as well as some 3/4" round tubing. The square tubing is 6061; I'm not sure what allow the round tubing is. We bought it back in 2006 and found then that we couldn't accurately bend it in a way that suited our needs.

I'll PM you a screenshot of our claw so you can get a better idea of what we're going for.

[=Martin=Taylor=]

Originally Posted by M. Krass

Ah, I see. Our gripper base is designed to accept anything as large as 1x1" square tubing -- and to allow replacing it quickly when it gets mangled to Hell. We've got 1x1x1/16" on hand as well as some 3/4" round tubing. The square tubing is 6061; I'm not sure what allow the round tubing is. We bought it back in 2006 and found then that we couldn't accurately bend it in a way that suited our needs.

I'll PM you a screenshot of our claw so you can get a better idea of what we're going for.

Our team built its own pipe bender to bend 3/4" 1/16" wall tubing. It took about three days to build and was fairly cheap (considering it was built from scrap). We were able to bend a 27" diameter ring with no kinking or deformation.

If you are interested, PM me and I'll explain how it was done.

Before we did it ourselves, we recieved an estimate from a pipe bending company that wanted to charge us $2000 (including discount ) with a lead time of 20 days!