4495A's New Design (I guess this would be the... GA Design?)

Hey Everyone!

I’ve been watching and reading the fora for a while but just haven’t posted yet. So after our brainstorming meeting 3 weeks ago, we came up with this design for an intake. So after prototyping the past 2 weeks this is our intake!

Video coming soon!

https://vexforum.com/gallery/files/4/5/1/2/5/2/img_20120507_151355.jpg

https://vexforum.com/gallery/files/4/5/1/2/5/2/img_20120507_151403.jpg

EDIT: Video Added

http://youtu.be/QxWEzmEniBo

Sorry about the video, one of our new members was driving for his first time and the shaft collars holding the intakes inplace came loose so the intakes slid to one side.

How well does it work with the sack ? Do the flaps provide enough friction on the sacks ?

I would also like to know how well the flaps work with the 1:1 gearing it looks like you have. From my testing, it seems like this would not work well for Sack Attack, but I may be wrong (in which case I would need to get back to testing).

Have you tried this intake on sacks, and if so, how well does it work?

Thank you for posting, and thank you to others who posted your ideas as well. I like having an open space to share these designs. :slight_smile:

We’ve tried a few things and have found the flaps work best. Another thing we tried was the tank treads with the holes in them (i don’t know what they’re called…) with stand offs which worked but didn’t adjust to the different orientations/heights like the flaps do. So I guess to answer your question, yes, there is plenty of friction to intake the sacks.

EDIT(ADDED): Yeah Owen, we have been prototyping with the 1:1 ratio but haven’t played around with any faster gear ratios, but that’s a good idea! We wanted to make sure that if a sack got caught the intake would have plenty of torque to put it through but perhaps we are going a little overboard!

Actually, I meant a ratio with even more torque! Have you seen my intake prototype?

Also, does your intake go up and down at all, or do you rely on the tolerance in the flaps to be able to get the sacks in?

Actually, based on his intake, I think he was asking if it has enough torque, not if it is fast enough
Edit - he beat me to it, sorry

Oh whoops! I guess I misread that! We have yet to have issues with not enough torque! Owen, did you try 1:1 and have issues?

I’ll talk on behalf of Owen. We did have torque problems, but that’s because our intakes pull the sacks down and under, which is why we like our intakes, but we need a lot of torque. Can you intake stacks of the sacks?

We were experimenting with the intake rollers in latex tubing to allow change in height but we took that off because it wasn’t working as well for intaking one sack. One of our builders has our second sack at his house so we haven’t been able to try. :frowning:

OP, does your intake have the ability to intake more than one sack at a time?

It seems to hold the first sack in such a way as to prohibit the movement of additional sacks up the ramp, but I can’t tell from the video.

Yeah our ramp/holder will be much different and parallel to the ground, this was just our gateway ramp. I will update on if it works for 2 tomorrow but we have only had one sack for the past few days.

So we tried today, and it can easily intake 2 on top of each other in any orientation.

Here is a picture better explaining how ours adjusts:

http://i45.tinypic.com/2dsn81u.png

dude, post vids already
without vids, its impossible to tell if this is a “rough prototype” or if it “gobbles up sacks” or in between

this should be the new term for reveals
“vids, or doesnt exist” :stuck_out_tongue:

Sorry! There is a video under the pictures now, but i can’t edit to take out the “Video coming soon”. We don’t have a video of it intaking 2 at a time yet though. Hopefully we can get the tomorrow.

You don’t have any collars to hold the intake wheels in place???

Looks like you will have to play with the distance between the ramp and intake rollers. Seems to get stuck a bit.