Hello, first year VRC team here. We want to use pneumatics to help us with a hanging mechanism. We have a four piston hang mech, and the pistons help lift it up and down for hanging. When the pistons are fully extended, the hang mech will be high up getting ready to hang. The first time we do this, their is plenty of air for the mech to go up to an adequate height of the red or blue bar, but the second or third time we do this, it raises less and less higher. Also fyi we mean that the mech “raises up” not saying it is raising up and hanging, but the mech is angled up to the height of the bar. Anyway, because the air released each time is inconsistent, it does not reach up high enough to the bar. So is there a way to use the regulator from the first generation pneumatics kit to let the piston release an equal and consistent amount of air each time? If so, how do we do that and what is the basic lay out of this. Thank you so much. We should also mention that we are using the reservoir from second gen pneumatics kit, and also the red PSI measurer, but gen 1 regulator. 
if you have any other piston controlled mechanisms on your robot, like wings, they obviously don’t need as much power as they get. I use a pressure regulator on all 4 of my wings so that I can reserve as much air as I can for my 4 piston lift. I would recommend using a pressure regulator on your wings first.
you would run this from your reservoir → right before the wing solenoid(s) → adjust its pressure by twisting the little knob there
if this doesn’t work, if you have only one reservoir, then run two tanks. your last resort should be putting a pressure regulator on your lift, since you want to give as much air for it as you can. (or honestly, reserve a whole tank for your lift)
make sure to put bands on your lift lol that way even if the upward movement of the lift takes up a lot of air, the downward movement will still be ok
Hello! Thank you for your reply, and I still have a few questions. So I also have wings to, and then obviously a four piston lift. So we are planning on using the 2nd gen resevoir for our 4 piston hang, and then a first gen tank for our wings, because the 2nd gen resevoir can store more air. So that is 2 resevoirs in total. So my question is about the regulator. I thought that the regulator is only to make sure that the resevoir doesn’t go over a certain PSI. For example, my understanding is that if you accidentally pump to 120 PSI, then the regulator would immediatly release about 20 PSI. If that is the case, then is their a possible way to make the pistons consistantly use only for example 30 PSI of air using the regulator? Because what we are noticing is that the first time we press the button on our controller to lift the hang mech, it can lift perfectly high because their is enough air, but the second or third time, it releases less air, and then less air, meaning that the second or third time, the hang would not reach up high enough. And that is the problem, and that is why we want to possibly figure out a way for the regulator to help make the pistons go out using consistantly 20 or 30 PSI, however we still are unsure about how to do this. Also we do have bands, but that is also making it harder for the pistons to open up, however the bands are a must because it helps hang. Thank you so much!
so since your wings are on a separate reservoir, you would put a pressure regulator on the hang solenoid.
a pressure regulator does not change the psi of the reservoirs. it is a valve that lets you control how much air goes from the reservoir to wherever, and in this situation, it would be on your hang solenoid.
check out this link for more info Redirect Notice
hope this helps.
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