I’m looking at getting a pneumatics kit for the students to check out and get familiar with. It’s not for a specific design… it may get used on a robot at some point.
What have you found is better for general robot use? Single acting to conserve air? or double acting for additional control?
I’d say double acting. You can disconnect the “retract” side and use a rubber band to use it as a single acting piston.
Definitely double acting for training use. If the particular mechanism design allows, single acting will save air: to make it single acting, you need to just plug one of the ports on the solenoid valve. The advantage of retract (if running as a single-acting) is that you can use only the amount of spring force (if any) as required, rather than having to work against the built-in spring of the single acting cylinder.