Just looking for advice; How do you guys do your joints for your lifts or anything that rotates?
In starstruck my team used a 4 bar that worked pretty well, for the joints we used axles+bushings, lockrings to hold the axles in, and washers/bearing in between the metal pieces. It wasnt very compact, or pretty, and after a while the lockrings would loosen up and overall it sucked.
Example:
I’m not sure how other teams go about rotating joints but this is what I like to do.
Every pivot requires a bearing on each price of metal. If a joint does not require a motor on it I like to use screws with a locknut on it to securely hold my joints together. Just be careful that you do not over tighten the locknut as that will cause excess friction and prevent movement. Being that I like to use screws in picots I like to bolt the gears to the metal I’m trying to move when possible creating a dead axle situation. However there is a time and a place for live axles. If I were to have two prices of metal touching I will place a nylon washer between the two to insure minimal friction. A trick that my team has picked up on to help reduce the width of pivot assemblies is to place the bearing under a bend in the c channel or angle. That way it is there but out of the way in less usable space. I can understand how having to retighten lock collars can be a pain, but if your looking to compete that is just part of pre-match maintenance. I was on pit crew for my FRC team and before every match you have to go through and check all the screws. If your looking to cheat the system some you can get some locktite to place on the set screws in the axle collars. Hope that this helps and sorry for any grammar mistakes, I sroge this on my phone
Was just about to link this same video. Here is it without the timestamp.
