I have a dual stage intake with the rubber band intake on the first stage and a tank tread lift for the second stage.
I want to know how other teams are making theirs so fast and efficient because when I intake the balls they get stuck and they never get to the second stage.
Also when the intake does work how does teams keep each ball lined up before being shot out of the flywheel.
Can someone please give me some tips that could make my intake more efficient?
I will post pictures of my robot to give everyone a better view of what im working with.
Thank you everyone!
If you dont have flaps on your second stage/tank tread, now would be a good time to add them. Also, you might need to decrease the distance between the first stage and the second stage so that the tread can grab it from the intake. On our old robot we had a system of one bars that guided the ball down to the flywheel after it left the 2nd stage lift. Also, adding another motor wouldnt hurt if you have the motors to do it.
We had the same problem, initially, we just decreased the distance between the “primary” and “secondary” intakes. But then it became harder to intake balls close to the walls, near other robots, etc. Then we decided to raise the intake, and use bigger sprockets, which eliminated both issues. As infinity_dragon said, adding flaps to your conveyer might not be a bad idea.
Another thing you may want to consider is trying to minimize the compression of the ball. This helped us because our older robot actually would move up whenever the ball rolled under our top roller intake and ended up bending our shaft. Rubber band top rollers are seeming to catch a lot a popularity, and they’re very effective. Another thing we went ahead and did was upgrading our intake motors to turbo. Update us on which route you take and the effectiveness of that. Hopefully it works out! Thanks!