We our almost done with the final prototype scissor lift and want your opinions on what we could do to make it better or some tips since as this is our first scissor lift and has been a pain trying to find one that is some what stable. The pro of this scissor lift is that you will break the gears and machine before it falls down or pulls up. Basically you can’t move the scissor lift unless the motors are on so weight cannot pull it down.
On the other hand I have provided a video and if you look to far left slide we have had a problem with just this one where it will push itself into the slide and get stuck, when we put elastics on it it goes a little farther and then does it again. Basically its pulling it up rather than what it needs to be doing, pushing the slide back and fourth. But we went all out and the length is 17 14/16 so we don’t have much wiggle room to move the scissor lift back and fourth.
I uploaded the video in HD quality and for some reason youtube put it at 240p so its bad quality. Trying to fix at the moment.
I try not to comment in these “judge my build” threads (nothing wrong with them, per se, but just not my thing), but I thought I’d let you know that YouTube does some processing with the video before it becomes HD. It’ll fix itself typically in a few hours, as I recall.
I built a decent scissor last year, and there are several others on this forum that’ll lend you a much better thought than I would. But here’s mine: First, it looks pretty stable from the angle you filming, and you have it from what it looks you have it geared just fine for what ever intake and however many cubes you plan on carrying. If I understand your issue correctly, it’s due to the two ends of each half being free to travel. I would put two standoffs in the middle and tie rubber bands going towards each slider truck. This way the trucks come in a more controlled fashion. Very good build, keep at it.
Your “rack and pinion” scissor lift was attempted by one of our teams last year. I am not sure if it was the lack of quality of their build or not, but under load they kept having rack gear teeth sheering off.
It is also quite slow, or at least it seems like it. Your gear ratio must be quite high, which is great because it will lift a lot, but also bad, because in a timed game, every second counts. What is your gear ratio? We are using a 15:1 ratio and it seems to be a good balance between torque needed to lift and also speed so the lift doesn’t take more than about 3-4 seconds to raise up fully to a height well over the highest skyrise piece.
We are using the “Chinese Scissor Lift” design. Google it or search it on your tube. So far this year, we are having zero reliability issues compared to last year.
