A question for those that know a lot more than me

Would it be a feasible idea to combine both a horiztonal and a vertical cruhser attached to the same hydraulic ram, basically making a 3 way crusher, or would such an idea need two rams?

Yup, its definetly feasible; it does mean that the horizontal and vertical crushers would both close at once, but as long as thats ok with you....

Forum user Tony Fowler has recently built a combined crusher called Kanzor, which, judging by pictures, uses a single windscreen wiper motor with a threaded rod attached to operate both sets of claws:

http://s31.photobucket.com/albums/c367/ayrshirerobotics/?action=view&current=kanzor.jpghttp://s31.photobucket.com/albums/c3...ew&current=kan zor.jpg

As long as you have three pivot mounting points on the actuator tip (two on one axis and one on another) it can be done

(Just to avoid any confusion, that picture linked above is not mine, it was on Tonys profile before he updated it and I saved it to my computer. Ill be taking it down soon since its not technically mine to distribute but it at least shows how it can be done)

Mechanically it would be easy enough - its just how you would design it so it wouldnt damage itself. The other problem is that each claw would only do a third of the damage of a single one because the power is spread across thrice as many points.

Thanks guys, Ive got a theoretical question. Say the sides of the robot being crushed were 1 CM thick hardox but the top was only 2 mm aliminium. Would the top crusher be stalled against this robot because the two side crushers couldnt go any further? I believe it would, but Id like it confirmed.

I was wandering that myself when I was answering, the answer is probably yes if the distance between the pivot and the ram was the same on all three, but if you had the distance different on the vertical then you could get more movement out of the vertical so it wouldnt matter. Unfortunatly Im too tired to work out whether the distance would have ot be more or less for that to happen.

Definatly yes. As the ram has no movement anymore because it is blocked by the arms locked in to the Hardox, the third arm would be going nowhere.

@Alex: that would only work if the front of the robot you are trying to squeeze is square, on a recantgled shappe (wider than it is high) that would never work. Or with a high robot as an opponent you would lift your robot of the ground first, bfore the sideclaws come into action.

With Splinter we had 2 rams, 1 to close the claws, 1 to fire the axe, which we also used as grappling hook sometimes to drag an opponent into the pits.

if you were to use a gimble type junction between the ram and arms, it should allow continued movement of one arm as the others are immobile due to crushing.

Incidentally, you would not always have 1/3 the crushing power on each arm, if the razer type met resistance before the kan-opener type, the full power of the ram would be entirly upon the razer type point. it is only if by coincidence all 3 touch the opponent at the same time, that the force is divided equally by 1/3rds.

The gimble idea I suggest negates what I just said above as it allows slack in the system.

Thank you again everyone. Time to start researching this gimble system.