Help with Pneumatics

Excellent specs Martin.

Its difficult to build an effective flipper 1st time....... you look around and then buy an expensive high pressure high flow solenoid only to find that its opening time and flow is nowhere near good enough for the application of robot throwing .......:angry:

An OPEN full port ball valve has the best flow rate possible.... the quicker you open it the sooner you reach maximum flow.

Your set up sounds v.good.......but have you tried WITHOUT a weight to flip?
The biggest problems H.P. flippers have found is stopping the arm without it either bending or the inertia taking the robot right over......Oh! whats the self righting like?

Woody

We have tried the flipper without weight, the first couple of times we managed to rip out the rams from the frame, after a few modifications we are now solid. As for flipping over we only jump the front by about 4 to 6 inches, we have kept most of the weight in the front 12 inches of the flipper, the whole flipper weighs in at 25lb, while on the back of the bot we have a scuba tank that weighs in at 21 lb, so the bot is well balanced.The self right test gave us a perfect self right and the only time we bent the frame was when i drove it into and through a 4 ft high brick wall..at full speed, left a nice gap in the wall....ooops
Now that we have built the new frame, (pics will be posted in the next day or so, I will post the link here) we have decided to keep the old frame and move it upto a super heavyweight, with some hardex plating, and the same flipper setup.

Mart

Look forward to seeing it.

i hear that the defyers cylinders exploded at WBX :uhoh:

Shame....but not surprised.
There are some horrendous forces involved in stopping the flipper arm and the rams LOOKED like low pressure but really its impossible to tell from just pictures.
Hopefully Martin will post a report.

The forces on a ram that uses the classic system are more than large.
And every weightincrease to beef up the arm makes it worse.

There is a simple solution, and is to lower the moving weights acting on the ram.

To all, I guess the news travels fast across the pond, its TRUE i blew my rams justas I was getting ready for my fight. Because we didnt have the correct electrical firing switch I had to mod a servo and a standard fog light switch to fire my intake valve, and the second servo fired the exhaust, anyway my I powered the bot and as I open the air tank mike switched on the transmitter and boom, the ends blew with a huge bang.
What happened was as he switched on the radio the servo activated the switch which in turn opened the valve and as I opened the air tank I discharged 2000 psi into my rams......
The force ripped of the heads and cumpled the cross support inside the bot, the whole thing jumped a couple of feet in the air, any way by the time every one came running I was seen kicking the s**t out of the robot. but we continued with the battle and took LNW the full 3 minutes.

Forgot to mention the rams were rated for 250 psi, we had been running them higher with no problems, guess they didnt like that high.... LOL

Bimba Rams?
What happened was as he switched on the radio the servo activated the switch which in turn opened the valve and as I opened the air tank I discharged 2000 psi into my rams......

Ummm .......how? .......your build pics and specs show that your running pressure regulators!


(Message edited by woody on July 30, 2006)

Did you have a Low pressure relief valve fitted?