Hi my FRC team was wondering whether or not we are able to put Actuators on our robot or not. Any help would be greatly appreciated.
Did you search the rules for “actuator”? ::rtm::
There are many types of “actuators”. Some are perfectly legal, some aren’t allowed at all, and some are only allowed under certain conditions. If you can be more specific, then we can help you better.
Disclaimer: Any rules advice you receive on Chief Delphi (except from certain users that are also LRI’s/LRI of LRI’s, especially Big Al) is unofficial and should not be relied upon at competition.
Electric Linear Actuaors
You must use a legal motor for the actuator. Assuming an off the shelf actuator doesn’t have a legal motor in it, you could try replacing it with a legal motor, if possible.
See rule <R29>
Many teams will use pneumatics for linear motion. If would also be helpful to say what application you need the actuator for.
If you really want an answer then you are going to have to state your question with a reasonable amount of detail. The rules about what kinds of actuators you can use are relatively strict and it will really help if you have a particular actuator (or just an example of one that you might use) to show us what you are talking about. Even “Linear Electrical Actuators” is somewhat vague as there are different types.
In fact this is a good lesson in professional discourse, in order to get a high quality answer, you need to provide a high quality question. An example of a higher quality question would be:
“I have looked at the rules about actuators and have some questions. Is it legal to use a linear actuator that is electrically powered? We are thinking of something like this one here. What about something bigger like this?”
If you can give a little more detail then I’m sure one of the people around here will be able to help you better interpret the rulebook. The rules can often be intimidating for newer students : )