I was wondering about something I heard about recently regarding pneumatic pistons. I heard that you are able to “release” the piston as opposed to it pulling and pushing up and down in order to save air. For example, if you have rubber bands already pulling down on something, and the piston is holding it up, being able to release the piston to let the rubber bands naturally pull it down to save air would be good. I heard from other people and some robot explanations that this was possible and it would be a great help if someone could explain this to me.
One way you could do this is by only attaching one fitting on one part of the double acting cylinder while leaving the other side open. On the solenoid, put a fitting and a plug on the place where you would normally attach a second fitting.
This setup will not work. If the air is on it will retract the piston and if the air is off it will also retract the piston. For this to work, you need to have the air going into the hole farther away from the piston.
