Hi. Me and my team’s 4 bar lift is starting to have some overheating issues. I can post pictures Later, but the whole thing is built with steel(not enough aluminum), and powered by 2 green cartridge motors. We have looked and can not find any external friction. We have crossbracing, and the triangle formation rubber bands. Thank you for reading.
So, get aluminum if you can, use red cartridges (100 rpm torque), and use a large gear ratio 1:7 is good, or 1:5.
we currently have the biggest red against metal gears.
ok, that is a good ratio, change those cartridges, and the steel is too heavy. But motors on lifts will start to overheat after 7-10 minutes of use.
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Ok. Currently, we are still overheating after 2 minutes max. SHould i switch all of the lift to aluminum, or only the part that lifts up.
All of the lift it should be better
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only the moving parts, the c-channels holding up the motors and moving parts can stay as steel, they are stronger that way.
Ok. Thank you for the useful information!
If you have aluminum, it should all be aluminum. Just brace it with half cuts or stand offs and then you should be fine.
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We have minimal to no aluminum. We might have enough 2 wide c-channels for it though.
if you can make it work, do it in aluminum. Less weight will help.
You have bearing blocks on everything right? Also screw joints?
We are using screw joints for the connection to the claw, and the bottom c channel(The top has the 82 tooth gear. )
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We also do have bearing blocks on everything. We will try with aluminum
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if they are overheating after 2 minutes with that gear ratio, then yes, switching to aluminum would be best. along with red cartridges.
Another thing you might want to check is if your screwjoints are to tight or if they are causing to much friction. This can contribute to your motor overheating problem.
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One last thing, in the code, the stopping for the motor tower are set to hold right? If not, then you’ll wanna do that.
Why? Is it horrible for the motors?
Yes, and then you have to go up and down constantly, overheating the motors at 3x the speed.
If you set the motor to hold it locks the motors which would just add strain to the lift. I would se them to brake if it’s really an issue because brake allows for the motors to be under less strain while they are holding weight. But you will encounter yer drooping and the arms will go down over time but the motors will have less strain on them
Most motors on break don’t go down a little over time, they go down a lot on arm motors. So most of the time the driver has to hold the button to keep the arm spinning up, which puts significantly more strain on the motor than setting the holding to break, although for certain things holding is irrelevant, for the vast majority of arm lift systems it is a must.
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