Slowing a piston with full power

[Bruceb]

Is there a way to make a piston travel slower but with full power?? Like some kind of flow restrictor?
Thanks
Bruce

[EricH]

Originally Posted by Bruceb

Is there a way to make a piston travel slower but with full power?? Like some kind of flow restrictor?
Thanks
Bruce

Yes. There are some right angle turns (threaded on one side) in the KOP that have a small white knob on one side. The knob is a flow controller.

[IndySam]

[AndyH]

You can also try getting a pipe plug and drilling a small hole in the plug and screw it in the exhaust port of the air valve. This will slow the exhaust and therefore slow the piston. It works well and you simply keep drilling out the hole till the desired piston speed is achieved. You can also get adjustable flow control valves. I like the pipe plug trick because once it is correct it can not be adjusted and messed up. I use this in industrial applications all the time.

[dlavery]

Originally Posted by AndyH

You can also try getting a pipe plug and drilling a small hole in the plug and screw it in the exhaust port of the air valve. This will slow the exhaust and therefore slow the piston. It works well and you simply keep drilling out the hole till the desired piston speed is achieved. You can also get adjustable flow control valves. I like the pipe plug trick because once it is correct it can not be adjusted and messed up. I use this in industrial applications all the time.

Do not do this. While it may be acceptable in some industrial applications, it is not acceptable on an FRC robot. Read the rules in Section 8.3.4 very carefully.

Just stick with the suggestion to use the flow control valves provided in the Kit Of Parts. They are provided for just this purpose.

-dave


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[Brian C]

One thing to remember about these flow control valves. They control the flow of air LEAVING the cylinder. They do not limit the flow of air entering the cylinder.

[dlavery]

Originally Posted by Brian C

One thing to remember about these flow control valves. They control the flow of air LEAVING the cylinder. They do not limit the flow of air entering the cylinder.

That is not automatically true. It all depends on how you use them, and how you place them in the pneumatic circuit.


-dave




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[Andrew Schuetze]

A quick study would seem to indicate that one would only need to constrict the flow of air entering the piston on the stroke one wants to limit the speed as the other side is open the atmosphere and just vents. However, taking this to an extreme limit though, if you completely or nearly completely close the needle valve on the vent side then is will limit the flow significantly and slow things down.

So here is my question, is it possible to use various settings on valves on both ends such that on the out stroke you have one speed and then on the in stroke a significantly different speed. a.ka. out - slow .... in - faster

Thanks,

APS

[TubaMorg]

Originally Posted by Andrew Schuetze

A quick study would seem to indicate that one would only need to constrict the flow of air entering the piston on the stroke one wants to limit the speed as the other side is open the atmosphere and just vents. However, taking this to an extreme limit though, if you completely or nearly completely close the needle valve on the vent side then is will limit the flow significantly and slow things down.

So here is my question, is it possible to use various settings on valves on both ends such that on the out stroke you have one speed and then on the in stroke a significantly different speed. a.ka. out - slow .... in - faster

Thanks,

APS

This would be possible, but you would need to mount the needle valves at the solenoid exhaust ports to be effective. If you mount the needle valves on the cylinders, air flow will be throttled in both directions which would prevent varying the speed per cylinder direction.

[Jeff K.]

Originally Posted by Andrew Schuetze

So here is my question, is it possible to use various settings on valves on both ends such that on the out stroke you have one speed and then on the in stroke a significantly different speed. a.ka. out - slow .... in - faster

We did this last year by putting one on each end of the piston, and adjusting each one accordingly. The best way to find out how it affects it is by adjusting one side a little, and then firing it back and forth and seeing how it reacts.
You can get them pretty different, just try and see what works best for your application.

You can have them on either the solenoid portion or the piston portion, won't really affect it that much since the air flow is mostly controlled by the small diameter of the adapters and plugs more than anything.