Robot Lifting

[TubaMorg]

Originally Posted by JHSmentor

how are you making the clamp engage the tubing? in the picture above, the actual weight of the clamp fingers causes it to initiall close around the cylinder. then as it is hoisted off of the cround the clamp sqeezes tighter - caused by the additional weight of the cyclinder itself. But - gravity is doing the work initially. For the robot, this mechanism would be verticle so you would have to initially get the clamp to squeeze a little around the bar before activating the winch and fully tightening it. I can think of some ways to make this happen - just curious if you have come up with something.

Also, is the plan to attach to one verticle bar or two? I am invisioning a system that would use two but I think aligning them for attachment could be very tricky given the type of clamp. Any thoughts on this?

One method we considered was using a lead screw to attach to the pole. We have found, though, that the robot weight is enough to maintain a positive grip. We aren't done enough to drive yet, but we will be using V-type guides to align the gripper. Plus the gripper opens quite wide until engagement.