pic: Off-Season Kicker Design

[Ether]

Originally Posted by apalrd

The key to not damaging the pot.

We anticipated that the stresses on the shaft would break a potentiometer if it was connected directly to the shaft. We isolated it with a chain so that the rotary motion was transferred, but any other forces were not.

Isolating the pot from the shaft (via a chain or belt etc) is certainly a solution, but not the only way.

If you use the pot to replace one of the shaft bearings then of course that's going to put unacceptable loads on the pot. But if you mount the sensor directly to the shaft (through a simple coupling) on the outboard side of one of the end bearings it will not bear the shaft loads.

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