Our team is looking for some advice. We are thinking of using two regulator modules to one solenoid, is this legal? The reasoning being we want to use a smaller pressure to extend our intake and a higher pressure to retract it. Again is this legal? I wasn’t able to find it anywhere else on CD. Thanks for the help!
I don’t think there’s any rules that prohibit doing this, but you may not be able to do it with a single solenoid; most solenoids are 5-port and only have a single “P” (pressurized) input. That input is switched to either the A or B outputs, and the opposite A/B is simultaneously switched to either EA or EB (exhaust ports). You could use two solenoids, one for the higher pressure and one for the lower pressure, each plumbed to one side of the actuator (and the unused A/B port plugged).
The more important question however is whether you actually need to do this–do you actually want more force in one direction than the other, or do you just want a different speed? If it’s just a speed thing, you can use the same pressure and use pneumatic speed controllers (flow rate values) to slow down the flow rate only in one direction.
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Like Peter said above you need to decide if you want less speed (flow) or less force (pressure).
Our intake has a regulator between the solenoid and the cylinders on the extend ports so that we have less force extending them to allow us to adjust the pressure and let the intake raise as it intakes a ball.
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In addition to the thoughts above, a piece of “make sure it passes inspection” knowledge: you can have as many pressure regulators as you want, provided they are all downstream of a SINGLE primary regulator. That means you have a single regulator that brings your working pressure down to 60PSI (or less), and then a secondary regulator hooked into that 60 PSI working pressure that brings it down further to whatever you want for a specific mechanism.
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A flow rate control valve looks something like this. It works to reduce flow rate in one direction only, so your cylinder can have different speeds for extend and retract.
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If you wish to control only one port of the valve then look at these https://www.automationdirect.com/adc/shopping/catalog/pneumatic_components/special_purpose_pneumatic_fittings/pressure_regulators_-z-gauges-z-_indicators/pru14
I’m not sure if its true this season but in the past AutomationDirect has given team vouchers as the KOP.
That is true this year, there is a $50 voucher in the virtual kop.
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Not only is that true, but right now they are running a two day free delivery guarantee. If you have an account with them, they will ship your parts for free to anywhere in the US, using whatever method will get it there in two days.
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Another potential solution is to add a spring in parallel with your actuator to capture the energy from the pneumatic that then assists in retracting the intake. We use this method a lot when the work is not symmetrical in both directions.
Depending on what you are trying to do… You can put regulators between the cylinder and the valve. Just make sure they are the relieving type. For speed control you are generally better of with speed control valves that Don mentions. Be sure to use the meter out version so that it controls the discharge from the cylinder. (except for spring return cylinders were you would use meter in.
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