Bipolarism sucks. But there’s a reason I overtighten… let’s just say the name came before the habit. Cause-effect style.
Plus Got a Screw Tight just doesn’t jive with my trademark craziness and unorthodox thought process.
I mean, they have an entire thread dedicated to discussing new product ideas. Funding and developing the product on a commercial scale is not the purpose of this thread (though it is not limited to just the concept of a new part). I feel that you are delving too deep into something that we seemingly have no control over.
I’m not arguing that Vex could make these products on a commercial scale themselves. Similar to how they produce new products frequently (look at the August 2019 Product Release thread), they could also produce this idea if given a large enough demand for it. The means behind manufacturing it is beside the point.
Note, there is no solid design behind this either, it is just a concept. I’d assume a manufacturer would follow a similar process to creating nylocks but instead with a standoff. It doesn’t have to be an overly complex product.
another easier to manufacture solution, although probably not as good, would be to have little screw holes on the sides of either end of the standoffs, so you could put shaft collar set screws into them, or even normal screws, and the locking mechanism would be like a shaft collar rather than like a nylock nut. with some equipment, teams could even manufacture such parts themselves.
Now this is a very good idea. You’d need to find a very small thread bit and a maybe a drill or a thread tap. This seems more practical than a nylock standoff because you’d be able to hand tighten it to a specific length.
…And then your set screw would come loose and you’d be in a similarly unfortunate situation.
So from reading this thread people seem to only semi-understand the issues with a standoff with nylon inserts embedded in the threaded ends on either side. One issue I haven’t seen people mention, besides the manufacturing difficulty of such a part (far, far more complex than a regular standoff which is just made by drilling a hole and milling the threads) is the logistics of using such a part.
Where in the standoff is an appropriate location for the nylon insert? How do you easily take out a coupler that has been inserted into one of these nylon insert standoffs with the socket-side in?
Honestly, a few better solutions to all of this:
- Loctite (I know it’s been mentioned, but getting low strength loctite is quite useful)
- Putting a locknut on the coupler in between the standoffs
- Using washers on all standoff connections for extra compression in order to resist vibration and increase friction
3a. Using locking washers
then acutally using the screws when the glue dries and hardens.
Ya think that maybe, just maybe, it would be as simple as welding a nylock onto a standoff?
It’s a long shot, but maybe?
I’m literally thinking of an elongated nylock made out of aluminum. There could be tweaks to the design, but in principle, that’s what it would be. Think of what standoff is. It’s essentially an elongated nut. You probably shouldn’t put a coupler in to a locking standoff. But just think about it, some of the most important connections in a robot are held together by standoffs so you probably want that connection to be very strong.
Personally, I like your solutions. But this is yet another alternative to the issue that is better than some of the shortcomings of the other solutions.
I did this during gateway and I know I have used the sides of standoffs as a mounting point, drilling and tapping them is a huge pain if you do not have a Drill press and a vise imo (gotta keep that sucker straight!). I think we even used sets of three to make H shapes for our drive train on the toss up bot so we could tighten and loosen aspects of the chain drive with the VEX wrench.
ok I see the issues with lock standoffs, and standoffs with set screws, so how to we create lock standoffs without a significant manufacturing change? I was thinking, we already have nylocks, what if we could somehow attach a nylock to the ends of a standoff? I’m thinking plastic/metal bits with 2 hex sockets on either end of it, one fits a nylock, the other fits the end of a standoff, that way you have a standoff fixed to the locknut. now you just put a screw into the nut and probably a little ways into the standoff, and it’s basically a lock standoff. would plastic be strong enough for this? all this cap piece would be doing is fixing the rotation of the nut to the rotation of the standoff, the screw would be doing all the real effort. And, I’m sure such a connector either exists, or would be extremely easy to manufacture.
I can think of two ways of locking standoffs using currently legal parts:
-
Loc-tite (either the pre-applied ‘Locking screws’ or added to screws at time of assembly)
Maybe create the nylon bit separate as outlined earlier?
I’m thinking something along the line of a spacer with nylon on the inside, or maybe just a spacer made of nylon entirely.
I’m a fan of the rotation-locking part idea.
It could be like a hex nut retainer, but for standoffs (which was legit my first idea for using those parts, until I realized they were a different size.
But the nylock with extended sides to “lock” the standoff makes a lot of sense to me.
Is it legal to literally zip tie a Vex wrench onto the robot with the end holding a standoff? Because that’s kind of the effect we might want with the “standoff retainer.” (As opposed to the nylon standoff or elongated nylock.)
This should probably wait until we’ve discussed more, but whatever. I’ll make a poll now.
- Nylon lined standoffs
- Nylon-tipped standoffs
- Compressible tip standoffs
- Standoff retainers
- “Shell” nylocks (with elongated end to lock standoff rotation)
0
voters