pic: 6 speed?? Great in theory - lets see how it works!

[Paul Copioli]

Sean,

Looks very good, but I would like to see more detail on the gears (diametral pitch, backlash, etc.) in order to comment on robustness. With respect to the shifting, I would scrap the pneumatics idea and go straight to a ball screw or a lead screw. You could get VERY accurate positioning from that set-up and you could use the seat motor or globe motor. The issue is speed of shift so the globe motor might be the best candidate. For position sensing you could use limit switches (not what I would use) or a rotational encoder (digikey has a lot of choices). Using a motor/balls screw set-up like this will give you stiffness, accuracy, and repeatability.

-Paul