Hello all. I was hoping I could get a few suggestions on how to get the most power/range out of our pneumatics. Our team has tried quite a few designs involving air power, but none ever seem to work to their potential. We’ve seen from the 7090 teams and their “ramp-apults” that pneumatics can be extremely efficient/effective. I want to know what our team can do to achieve that standard.
As of right now, we have 2 double acting pistons, and 2 tanks. Buying more of either isn’t necessarily out of the question, but we’d rather not shell out money if there’s a solution we’ve been blind to this whole time.
You can optimize air pressure by twisting the pressure regulator - use just enough so that you can get by a match, you’ll have to do trial error to figure out the right balance of pressure and number of compressions. Strength vs usability time.
Also, minimizing the length in between the solenoid and the piston will mean less air is lost in between compressions, as a lot of that air is lost.
There are obviously more minute ways to get optimization of pnuematics, the above two are probably the most significant. Also, make sure all of the joints the piston moves (any rotational joints, linear slides, whatever is affected by the activation of the piston) are as frictionless as physically possible. Means less pressure is required in the long run.
Yeah, after some troubleshooting we did find that our pivot points weren’t properly supported, making them absorb some of the pressure instead of transferring it into rotational motion. But even after resolving that, we were still running into problems. Thanks again for your help!