Posting in an imgur album because its the easiest way I know of to share a few images.
There is one of these modules on both sides, basically it is two sprockets attached to the driving gears for the lift with chain between them, then the pistons fire and go between the two links of chain, creating a lock.
We can dehang fairly easily with this method through powering the lift until the pistons can retract on their own. So far only one piston has bent, though that was due to driver error (he didn’t realize it was locked and went to score some buckies)
I don’t have an air compressor/bike pump or a hanging bar at my house right now, or I would show a video of the whole hanging process.
Looks good except to keep from bending and ruining another piston, I would suggest adding in a bit more structure. We had two of these on the drive of our double trough blocker last year, and what we did was attached an axle to the end of the piston with a little bit of metal. Then we put a bearing on either side of the chain to be locked through, with a couple pieces of bar supporting the bearings. That way, if someone started pushing really hard on our drive, the piston would be safe. Might be a good safeguard for you guys too.
I do agree here though. The more structure behind something that is going to that much force on it, the better. I can’t wait to get the the lab Tuesday and start working on something.
I currently have no parts at my home, so I haven’t looked into changing the locking mechanism. We’ve been working with this for about two months now and had success with it in two tournaments and hundreds of hangs. Most of our issues with hanging have actually stemmed from not being able to get both hooks on, which we’ve fixed by switching to a single hook instead of two. I will definitely talk to my teammates though about implementing some of the suggested changes, thanks for the advice all.
