Locking devices

hello all,
my robot has a linear actuator for a lifting arm and im trying to make sure everythings passable for the techcheck and ive had a look at the techcheck sheet and it says...

Moving weapon parts must be locked in a safe position using
bars, straps or chains. The weapon should be immobile when
the locking device is in place.

the thing is without power from the link being in, the actuator isnt going to go anywhere, woody recons i dont need a locking device but i want to be a trillion percent sure to be on the safe side.

thanks calum

you just need to cover any sharp edges of the weapon. my heavyweight was hydralic and i never needed any locking device.

Youll need a locking device.

Latest meeting of the FRA techcheckers it was agreed that locking pins and cradles would get a bit more attention, just because it was ignored in the past.

http://gametechmods.com/uploads/images/83866Safety%20covers.JPGhttp://gametechmods.com/uploads/images/83866Safety covers.JPG
Heres an idea of what you can do (Image by me!)
The spikes are covered up by the faom tubes, as the other one is a bar screwed over the lifter, but if your robot isnt like these lifters, no spikes or like that, then it should be ok.

thats great thanks,
but my lifter has to be locked open so the robot can be fastened to the carry frame but, ie if the lifter is down it covers up a bolt used to secure the robot to the carry frame so i cannot get to it. but ive got an idea :) thanks for the help.

one more thing, is it a must have to have micro switches to cut out the power to the actuator at its max and min lenght of travel?? woody says its best to but i cant fit in one for the max travel as its impossible.

im off to do some welding and to make a bar to keep the lifter open,as the day of the event gets closer more works needs doing lol

thanks calum

Hey Calum

You dont necessarily have to have your robot fastened to its carry cradle (unless there has been a new rule implemented? Can someone enlighten me if there has)
As long as the cradle supports the robot with its wheels not touching the ground or pit bench then you should be fine without fixing them to each other.

Having microswitches to limit the travel would be best but if its impossible to mount one at the max travel you could maybe attach (or paint etc) a visual reference on your robot somewhere that you can use as a guide for when the actuator is nearing the end of its travel, so that you can cut the power to it before it exceeds it travel.

What type of actuator is it youre using?
And do you have any pictures of your robot at all?

Jamie

(Message edited by K_C_R on October 19, 2008)

Jamie you are right it doesnt have to be secured to the cradle in the pits, but it is a good idea for transporting it.

Mind, U, Im in the same sort of situation as Calum, Ive managed to make a cradle for Pug after Ed told me needed one when I went to Huddersfield, but Pugs lifter is powered by a spinning thread/screw so Im finding it a bit difficult to know what my weapon restraint should look like to stop it jamming on my fingers. If anyone knows what my locking device could look like and what part of my lifter it should go on, tell me plz. And also, pictures of Ideas are welcome

hi ,
ill sort a pic of the robot later when its all back together as ive taken everything out of the chassis to beef up some welds and to sort out this locking bar do dar,

ill put a pic as my profile pic later,

as for the type of actuator im unsure it says linak on it? any help? woody found it on ebay for me:)

thanks for the help
calum

To make u guys give me advice more easier, here are some photos of my robot http://s276.photobucket.com/albums/kk1/LiamBryant_photos/My%20Robots/Pug/http://s276.photobucket.com/albums/k...%20Robots/Pug/

liam your robot looks good:)

can you self right or not?

sadly i cannot:sad:

calum

I dont know, I havent tested the self-righting but I have tested the lifter in battle. When I got under Tiny Toon at Huddersfield, the stupid plug for the failsafe had fallen out meaning I couldnt stack him against the wall:sad:

Ahh, the last ever Zeobot competing, when will it go extinct, i wonder? Lol! :rofl:
Sorry, looks good Liam (Just incase, WhamettNuht off of YouTube)
Just a bit concerened, how well does it flip?
Or do you use it for a Pusher than anything else?

Know who U are Matt! If the lifter works the next time Im in the arena, it will slowly tip them over or stack them against the wall. Id like it to go fast but unfortunalty, pneumatics are difficult and dangerous for inexperienced people like me to work with :uhoh:

what are battles like? i will hopefully get my first one next sat at RR do you get chucked about much? im worried about all my hard work getting ran over by major damage

Well, ive never had a battle, but Liam did.
Im planning for my first event to be Easter, Colchester Roaming Robots 2009.
Hunter should be done by then!
But im sure that you will have your heart going beserk, because, yes you WILL be flipped, rammed, axed, picked up or trod on (Majour Damage!)
Good luck at the event, im going so hopefully we might meet each other!

ive now beefed up some welds and ive now made a locking bar:)

all thats left to do now is mount my reciever which ill do on tues and hopefully that will be it,fingers crossed........

ill put a pic up on my profile as soon as, so at the event matt just look out for the robot thats in my pic.

calum

Ok, im a regular visitar to RRs events, so during the 1st show to 2nd show break, i usually get to stay behind and go in the pits!
So i might be seeing you there!

When you come into the pits, ask for me because Id like to meet you

david,
is that your robot in your profile pic?
if so what can the axe go through?

calum

Ok, David.
Be good to have a chat!
I wont need to ask for you, i know what you look like, and your robots! (After the Easter event earlier this year!)

Calum, In response to ur question, It gets quite nerve-racking before ur first battle at the first outing for ur robot until the announcer says activate, U forget everything and concentrate on what U do. Also, it depends what battle U enter, If u enter a whiteboard fight, that will be a friendly fight, if its competition, U might get damaged I dont know but unless U attend a full combat event with ur robot, there will be no active spinners

Calum:

Ive no clue, Ive yet to fire that axe in a fight, because there was always something wrong with it :P

Calum,

Youll find that your first fight is always nerve racking. I remember wed spent a few weeks lashing Cylons gear box together before our first event at Nottingham last year (Happy aniversary Team Cylon!!:)). It really wasnt ever going to last long and I remember the feeling of dread when Pete asked me to drive into the middle of the arena because I wasnt sure itd get there. As it was it lasted to just before the end of the third fight and then died but only because a grub screw fell out.

The reality is itll get damaged sometimes. No-ones really out to do you irreparable damage and the damage you do get gets easier to deal with. First time we took Hydras speed controller out took us five hours to get it out and two hours to get it back in. This weekend in two and a half hours we replaced the speed controller (and did some fault finding on the other one to diagnose the faults, put in the new buffer tank and rewired where Beast had almost severed some of the cables, programmed the speed controller and so on.). After a year weve got enough experience to take ANY robot apart and we can almost put them back together too:rofl:.

Simple solution is if its broke and you dont know how to fix it just ask someone.

Andy

thanks andy:)

and there is now a pic of my robot up on my profile for the people who asked about a pic

i know theres problems with it like the front will bend and all the rest but for my first one its not too bad:)

also from early on, on the message board- you can see the locking bar i made

calum

(Message edited by calumco on October 20, 2008)

Looking very nice Calum - good luck at your first event!

I had an inkling that that might be the type of actuator you had, as I have the same one. I havent used mine in a robot yet but when I tested it out I seem to recall that it had a clutch system in it, in which case you shouldnt need limit switches to restrict the travel. Have you tried it out in your robot going to full travel? And does it try to continue to push or does it stop of its own accord?

Having said all that, its been months since I tested my actuator so I could be mistaken :lame:

hi jamie ,
now i come 2 think about it when it reaches it full length of travel it seems to go quiet, what i mean is if you hold a drills chuck and try to operate the drill it will fight against you and make a noise as it trys to move, but the actuator goes silent.

calum

most commercial actuators like that have built in limit switches internally so no need to add any in.

That model of actuator is actually direct-drive onto the leadscrew and so the motor will stall when it reaches maximum load or the ends of travel (unless you have a limit switched variation on the model, mine purchased from ebay did not have any). Shouldnt worry about stalling though as the currents involved are very unlikely to cause lasting damage.

Might be worth looking here if you ever consider a future actuator upgrade http://firgelliauto.co.uk/default.phphttp://firgelliauto.co.uk/default.php

Going back to the question :
The idea of the locking device is that when you put the link in, the weapon is prevented from moving in case there is a fault.
The locking pin etc is only removed when all is well.
So you do need one, having said that there are heavyweights with no weapon lock so could fire on power up!!!
Why is this not being picked up in tech checks?

I think this is a topic which has been discussed many times.

Ripper has a locking strap when in the pits, but I remove it before I power up.
I put link in, tx on, make sure all is well with drives and valves etc... then turn bottles on.

I cring when I see people arm up their robots with certain locking pins in, they have their robot fully armed and gassed, then lean over to remove the strap or pin. I wouldnt want my head anywhere near a live robot.
Some even lift their flipper arm to get them out !!

I must admit, it think your pin is from memory by far the safest ive seen, where when you remove it you are well away from the robot.

I dont knnow if there is a rule in place whioch donates the correct use of pins, and their removal during arming up.

I always thought the idea was for in the pits, say for example... a bottle valve has a slight leak and gradually arms the system, the pin will prevent the weapon from firing in the pits.

Saying that, i always keep my dump valve open when the robot isnt in the arena, and i think if anyone else doesnt, they need to.

John
http://www.RoamingRobots.co.ukwww.RoamingRobots.co.uk

I think it should be made clear that weapons (gas in particular) should be locked at all times until they are armed in the arena for combat.
Ditto with the dump valve, I only close mine after I,ve put in the link in arena.

The old Turb did used to misfire sometimes, it happened twice to Dave when he was arming up. It should in theory have fired slowlyish if the valve was open, but it was still lethal if you had got your head in the way. We never had a locking pin for arming up although we did use one in the pits.

I do use a bar that doesnt require my head anywhere near the weapon itself now. Dump valves should always remain open outside the arena, this is common sense to me.

The best locking devices are probably Pressure and Maelstrom using a rope to remove the device from a distance.

this is how beauty has it and it works cus weve left in in during a fight!! lol just a bar through them holes kinda obvious how it works
http://homepage.ntlworld.com/lichfielduk/ld1.jpghttp://homepage.ntlworld.com/lichfielduk/ld1.jpg

beast uses 1 this but i dont think weve ever left it in but beast is that well built we only have 1 so jonno doesnt moan at us :) lol http://homepage.ntlworld.com/lichfielduk/ld2.jpghttp://homepage.ntlworld.com/lichfielduk/ld2.jpg

(Message edited by john on October 20, 2008)

Yeah actually Beautys is fairly good as well, same priciple as mine.

ok, so what happens if it misfires while your pulling it half out.... your hand will be crushed between the rod and the arena floor :angry:!!!



John

whenever we have it in while we are arming up we always 4get to take it out anyway! lol

i cant say anymore cus the fra will start to watch us more often :lol:

Its all about minimising the danger, not stopping it. Its the nature of robot fighting that theres always a possibility for injury.
I would rather all robots had a system like beautys or LF/LHs to arm and them pull it out. it means theres no chance of missfires when the gas is let in (which some systems is likely). I would rather have 100kg on my hand than the full force of a flipper to the head or arm.Leaving the pin in until the last minute also minimising the time when the flipper is able to fire, so in my view, safer in every way.
Regarding locking pins for self locking systems is a tricky one that was talked about at a previous meeting.
I dont believe they need one, and as andy kane pointed out, to have a locking pin actually lock a hydraulic heavyweights crusher you need some beefy I-Beam or similar to stop it - and thats just not reasonable.
I have not seen a pneumatic robot pass a tech check without a locking pin since that meeting.

The build rules state the following...

1.5.5.
All Robots not in an arena or official testing area should have secure safety covers
over any sharp edges and restraints on any active weapons or pinch hazards.

Do we need some stronger wording regarding these locking pins?

When it comes to tech check I will expect to see locking pins / restraints on all flippers (heavy or feather) when on the bench.
How teams remove them on arm-up is up to them, but if I see anyone leaning into the line of fire of an armmed up robot to do it... you can expect to incure my displeasure!!

LJ, Who says Im not watching you!

(Message edited by scorpion on October 21, 2008)

how about crushers? on the fw crushers i have seen in the past i dont remember seeing locking pins obviously the sharp edge protection

alex