I need some help with my bot. I am wondering if anyone has any ideas on how I can make a gear lock so that in the end game it will lock are gears in place but I need to be able to move the lift up and down before that time. this needs to be done without pneumatics because the pneumatics we ordered are back ordered and will get here by my first tournament please help thanks(and it cant be a rachet because that only can go one way)thanks
for my climb to lock it we use a 5.5 to lock it then we hang on to the top bar. put part of a c Chanel on lock bars on an axles then it would be able to lock it and it works for both types of motors.
the only problem is we cant use any more motors
Without a motor or pneumatics, it’s very hard to make something that isn’t locked in the main match but locked in the endgame.
You need to think about if there is something that only happens at the start of the endgame.
Then use that to release the ratchet lever or something. Some paracord can be a good way to release something if the mechanisms are far apart.
Also, do you have any motor in your robot that could be swapped for a 5.5?
Hope this helps.
Hello!
The only way you can remotely cause something on your robot specifically in the endgame is either with a motor or a cylinder. If you don’t have either of those things, it becomes extremely difficult if not impossible. I would first do what @Mavric suggested and try to find a motor in your robot that could be swapped for a 5.5W motor or find a motor on your robot that only spins one way. If not, a good amount of robots have launching mechanisms, and most launching mechanisms only spin one way. (Like a catapult or a flywheel mechanism). You could try to ratchet one of those mechanisms so that they do their normal launching when spinning one way and lock the lift when spinning the other way. Just a thought. If you need any more help, I would recommend posting a picture here of your robot so that we can see what you have and help you build on this.
Hope this helps
thank you i have tried switchs every motor out for 5.5 the only other motors i could swap would be the drievtrain but i dont think that would be a good idea
Just out of curiosity, how many motors is your drive? I think a 55W drive is a very viable drive for competitions, but you would also have to make sure you don’t have conflicting speeds with the motors. 5.5W motors are locked at 200 RPM meaning that you would either have to have your drivetrain motors already be 200RPM or gear your motors up 3:1 to have the same speed.
A very easy way is to use a ratchet, You can rubber band a peice of metal to the back of the gear so it will not slip, this works with whatever gear ratio you have without changing anything.
The ratchet itself is literally just a piece of c channel or even a 2 by works just fine, connected to a bar on the bottom for integrity and rubber banded towards the gear. When the motor stops spinning the gear will roll back into the C channel and catch on the notch. If you want a picture I could find one of our bots.