Alright, I just got the rest of my parts today (Solenoid, Cylinder, Fill Valves) and I assembled the whole thing. To my surprise I got it to work the first time!
The whole unit operates great at 60psi, anything higher will probably rip the vex to shreds LOTS AND LOTS of force. at 60psi you get 26.4 lbs of push which is more than enough for the vex.
Right now the unit is large but that is only because I wanted to separate each component of a pneumatic system so that I could show how they work and why they are so important for a school project. I have a feeling I am going to get a %500 A++++ for this.
This unit can be much much smaller than this if the air system is removed but you would them have to connect a hose to a compressor to run it but its a large system so it may be worth it.
Its not vex compatible at the moment but it only needs a relay and a motor adapter or I/O interface to become compatible. The one problem I have right now is getting a 24v power source. I only need 500millamps but I can’t find a 24v battery thats about the size of 2-9v battery’s. Maybe I can put 3-9v battery’s in series but thats 27v which may be to much for the solenoid.
Here are some pictures…
very nice! what kind of tubing are you using to connect the actuator to the solenoid? it looks almost metallic.
What he’s using looks to me like what is generally used on the spray nozzles for sinks. It is plastic hose with a metal reinforcer like rebar in concrete.
The tubing is reinforced braided pvc, its essentially a tube wrapped in a strong white mesh then another tube is put over top of that giving it a maximum pressure of 250psi which made it an excellent choice for this project.
My other choice was vinyl tubing which has a max pressure of 40psi but its very flexible. The people at homedepot had no idea what I was talking about, I said “Do you have polyurethane hosing?” then he led me to a rack that said vinyl hosing and said this is it. LOL! At that point I decided to find it on my own, then I found out they didn’t have polyurethane (Max 120 psi) so I had to look for hose rated for at least 120 psi. Thats when I came across this stuff, its hard to break and the pressure rating is very high but its hard to bend. If I had the money I would have gotten 100ft of 1/4 polyethylene but that was $30 which was a little bit to expensive.
i wonder how many ppl have done this kind of thing only to exclude thinking of the tubing and then having their weak tubing exploding in their face?
lol
Its a very important part of the design, If you don’t use the correct tubing it will sort of explode and tear a part of the hose. I would love to see someone build this with latex tubing HA HA HA. They had a couple 10ft roles of it at homedepot but its not even rated for pressure so the more pressure you put into the tube would cause it to expand like a balloon!
I had this problem with my bike pump that I used to pump up my system upstairs (I have a 33 gallon compressor but thats downstairs) it was rated for 230psi but it never told me that so I kept pumping and then the tubing exploded. It was loud but thats about all it did.
I have a finished system here that I will make a video of to demonstrate each part of the system and its also for my school project.
