5826 bar crawler

#1

Pneumatic climb, bar crawler…next goal yaw sensor to automate!

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#2

What kind of cylinders are you using?

1 Like
#3

Those are not the final versions. Way too beefy but we had them on hand. (We build at one of our sponsors…they make heavy duty CNC routers). But 30 inch stroke, 2 inch bore.

TW

#4

You system is pretty awesome, I love the roller scatter wheels. But I bet they weigh a ton and take a tremendous amount of air to operate. Though, you only need to use them once.

#5

Well yes, the final version air cylinders will be 6.5 pounds each and the size of the air tank needed to reliably power this…I don’t like to think about that. But as a mentor I can honestly say this is a student driven project, I wouldn’t dare try to build this. But they wanted to build something cool that challenged them. It also has pneumatic H-drive omnis that pop up and down when we cross the steel bars on the floor. It will be a fight to the finish to make weight but they are fearless in their design pursuits.

TW

#6

Yep I totally understand, our students were developing a rack and pinion style climp using 25 chain, because we had them available in the shop. It worked our initial test g and with weight, but after 3 uses the sprockets started sheeting. So we had to have a very real discussion about gears VS sprockets. But it was a Great learning experience

#7

That’s pretty cool.

Does it hold position after the end of the match if the rung is at an angle? How easy is it to get hooked on the rung with the driver at a location approximating the driver stations?

#8

I think that the whole idea is that the rung will never be at an angle at the end of the match?

#9

Philso Don’t know, we just fired it up end of session yesterday! Probably it will hold position well enough if it is near level at the end of the match. Also the pneumatics keep the beast off the ground plenty long. We lifted it down after about ten minutes. It will take skill to grab on. The idea is that the lift will rise at about a five to ten degrees off of vertical. Raise elevator, drive it into contact with the bar and drop cylinders. The angle should allow it to just slide right on, especially if there is just a teeny bit of forward drive. There is some talk of mounting limelight up there if the alignment works both for this in the extended mode and for shooter angle in the retracted mode. Maybe we could “see” the framework?

Well, that’s the theory. Doesn’t it always come down to sufficient practice time?

TW