One of my favorite things we designed for our 2022 robot is our climber pivots. We decided early on to try for traversal climb and really liked the pivoting telescoping systems used by teams for the 2013 game.
Building on what we learned from the 2019 on how not to build a high torque pivot, we decided our 2022 climber pivots needed to be robust, that hex shaft wasn’t ideal, and that dead axel was the way to go.
With that in mind, this is what we came up with:
https://imgur.com/gallery/7y0jz7c
Some design details:
- 1.25 OD versa roller for dead axel
- Tube nuts to secure the axel
- 1.25 ID oil embedded bushings for smooth rotation
- MarkForge Onyx 3D printed bushing block to secure and space the bushings
- Axel pivot gussets machined with emboss that fit into windows machined into the outer telescoping tube. This allows us to attach things to the tube without interfering with inner tube’s motion.