So as I was regularly checking forum this morning, I ran across this thread: https://vexforum.com/t/expanding-flywheel/29779/1
And I liked both the mechanism and the idea. Although the mechanism failed in the end of the video, I am still very very thrilled to see teams already starting to look for something more than just motor >> a bunch of gearing >> flywheel.
In short, flywheel is something that has huge angular momentum. When starting up it requires a good bit of current from the motor even with some slew rate control, and when the motors are suddenly shut down – ahhh that’s the worst part – the huge momentum can rip apart chains, gears, and the worst, internal motor gears.
The former is something you can handle with some slew rate control. But the latter, as mentioned before, occurs at the end of autonomous and the match, when the motors are forced to shut down by the field control. The issue thus arises that one has to make a decision between sacrificing a few seconds of launching time in auton and driver control to decelerate my flywheel properly, which is a huge bite out of auton, and powering motors until the end and prepare to accept broken gears, flying chains and the horrifying “click click click” coming from inside the motors.
Is there a way to circumvent this issue?
[FONT=“Arial Black”]Think about bicycle wheel.[/FONT]
I was inspired by the thread I quoted to think more than just motor directly powering flywheel, and I thought of a bicycle’s ratchet and pawl mechanism. A flywheel does some similar tasks to a bicycle – it only needs to be accelerated, while doesn’t necessarily need to be precisely decelerated. When the power source stops, the movement of the wheel shouldn’t suddenly stop.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RuA1bD8vtCE
[Ratchet and Pawl Meachanism - YouTube
VEX has ratchet and pawl mechanism, I thought. The spring part might be tricky, but it can easily be done by a rubber band.
I think this is a pretty significant idea that can possibly greatly enhance the functionality of NBN flywheels. So I decided to post my thoughts here. Feel free to comment and offer your opinion. Right now I am pretty excited, and I will work on a design that is possibly gonna work with VEX parts.
To better flywheels,