I was wondering if anyone was using motors to hoist themselves up off the platform onto the bar, and what kind of motor they were using. We tried ours yesterday without success, and were trying to be efficient with the time we have left to solve the problem.
If anyone has any suggestions let us know, i believe pneumatics are out of the question because we are using them in another system. (but that could always change)
Our team is using the vandoor motor to lift us up to the bar, with the built in gearing system. However, a few weeks ago, I came across a thread that someone said something to the fact that they would see “many vandoor and window motor winches”. What motor are you using anyway?
Well we were using a fisher price motor
our team is using a drill motor to hoist us up. we had some slippage at first but then we used pulleys to minimize the tension and it now works perfectly. we are also going up from the floor not the base.
I thought about that but our drill motors are already being used for our transmission,
What was the problem? Was the motor backdriving? We are using an FP motor with a ratchet system. The ratchet is complicated to machine, we used a waterjet.
I think it’d be helpful to us if you described the problem you’re having in a bit more depth.
Did the motor stall? What diameter drum are you using for this device…which I presume is some sort of winch? Did the motor backdrive? Is there any gearing, or is the motor directly driving the lifting mechanism?
Our winch is driven by the output shaft of our drive train.
We are using the van door motors. The diameter of the winch is 5/8" and it doesn’t backdrive
Were using the globe motor direct driving a 1 inch shaft, supported on both sides by the kit pillow blocks that are bloted to the frame. The ratchet mechanism is top secret 
Good luck!
-Andy
Same here. We have a ratchet we can add if we need to but we haven’t had too. The van door motor works great if you rotate it around a small diameter. And the small diameter will make backdriving more difficult. Especially with braking.
Close to your andy too. We used the pillow blocks with the 5/8" shaft. And our ratchet is top secret too.
Well top secret rachets are all nifty and all, but we’re using a window motor driving a winch that we bought at a boat store. If you’re in a time crunch, which you must be by now, I think this is your quickest option. Just go to a boat store, look for a lightweight winch with a removeable handcrank that looks like it’ll be easy to adapt the van door or window lift motor to.
We’ve got two globe motors pulling us up with an interesting pully system (something like 20 feet of chain. . .)
we are usign the van door motor, with a very unique way of pullign us up. we are suign 2 mechanisms, one is a ball screw($400 unit, thanks NOOK for the free screw ) and that drives up 1 section, that causes a system of cables to move, causign anuther part to extend, witch dose the same thign, causing another to extend. we are usign an electronic sprign pin system to hold it up after the power is cut(an idea to use a spinnign fly wheel to power it, but too heavy)
evryone seems to be usign winches…not a winch or a chain on the whole thing
We’re using Window motors to lift the arm up and down and a smaller motor (van door maybe?) to release the hook. The arm then muscles up using the window motor. It’s efficiant and not very heavy. Today was a scrimage and we hanged very well. Other teams had problems or were too slow. However 343 was quite good at it as well. And another one I can’t recall wasn’t bad either. 
My team chose to use the seat motor with a 2:1 gear reduction, works perfectly, a little slow though, but it’s not comin down after we’re up there
The first picture shows the motors (I drew in arrows to show you which two out of the three drive the bar) and the othe picture kind of shows you the pully system on the bar (its the best picture I have at the moment or the system).
The last picture is us hanging from the bar at the end of the match.
Alot of people seem to forget that you can use any motor depending on how you gear it. Alot of people also seem to forget that you don’t have to lift yourself 9ft in the air. a cm or so will do. Why does speed really matter in this case. If you can lift yourself 1 cm in a few secs why does it matter as long as you are hanging. Perhaps i am missing somethign here.
we are using the same vandoor motor that lifts our arm to lift the bot. it can pull the robot ALL the way up, but we probably wont. its a pretty powerfull little motor
aight… i don’t really want to disclose all our information, but we’re using a combo of 3 motors to hang. two were designed to multitask performing another function then getting us up there, and the third is our winch (window). All i can say is it takes us a second to get up there- literally. and not just on the platform or steps too 
(i actually shot something through the ceiling when i misgeared a motor)
