Another day, another us. We came in with a mentality to clear the clearance problem. Will we do it today? Let’s find out shortly..
Luckily, our creative juices were flowing quite fast. One initial idea was to try unclamping only partially (to reduce the need for clearance), and to try rotating the clamping mechanism with the pneumatic unit slowly out of the installation chamber. This seemed promising, I mean, we didn’t feel that we have many options at this point, and trying to slowly squeeze through the clearance seemed an option.
<try to insert photo?>
With some renewed confidence, we (confidently) walked up to Tony to pitch our grand idea.
Drum rolls please…in 3… 2… 1…
Badumtss.
“Cannot lah!”
Instant rejection.
Because the clamps are designed for full unclamping, a partial unclamping would make it difficult for the technicians. In the dark space, they would have to judge how much to partially unclamp so that there was just enough clearance for the unit to squeeze through.
More importantly, if they did not gauge correctly, the clamp could clash with the metal wires, and if the lifting system continued to pull the unit out of the chamber, the metal wires could be potentially damaged by the clamps. Not the best idea for now.
But of course, we were not ready to give up. Within minutes, we pushed out another idea into the pipeline. The existing clamps were unnecessarily long, and the clearance we thought we needed might have been unnecessary.
So, we tried to make the clamps as short/small as we could, and hopefully that would decrease the clearance needed. Tony said this was a feasible route, and told us to just get our hands working on it. And so we did.
<insert more photos? if any>
In the meantime, in a bid to find new inspiration, we decided to revisit the photos we took during the depot visits. Unfortunately, for the worse, not better, we chanced across this one…
Terrible news for us. While Fadzuli’s very-kindly-done measurements (and somewhat misleading photos) seemed to suggest quite a bit of vertical clearance, this was clearly not the case! Here’s a recap on what he sent us a few days ago:
He had labelled this at 25 cm. Since the width of the unit was 10 cm by our previous measurements, the vertical clearance, logically, would be 15 cm. Lo and behold, from the photo previously, we were doubtful if even a 2020 aluminium profile could slide through that narrow clearance. Bad, bad news.
When Tony heard this, the look on his face was priceless.
“Ok definitely need to change liao. This one confirm cannot”
So a complete overhaul was in order. But how?
The first idea was to try to eliminate the clamping system on the top side of the unit, somehow. It made some sense – since the clamps were the ones causing so much clearance problems, our problems would be cleared if we cleared the clamps! Right?
The idea went something like this: Of course, clamps were still necessary to keep the unit secure and bring it up to the installation point. But perhaps, just perhaps, we could get the technicians to unclamp the top-side clamps when the whole unit is just reaching the installation point (but not yet locked in). There would still be ample clearance to unclamp the top-side clamps.
After they are unclamped, some sort of rotating joint could allow these clamps to be rotated inwards and folded just above the unit, so that they won’t cause any clearance issues. Since it was just maybe 20-30 cm to the installation chamber, we reckoned that a gentle movement by the arm was all that was needed to move the unit into the installation point and the rest was for the technicians to manually slide and lock the unit.
It was a very appealing idea. If clamps caused the problem, remove the clamps, and problem is solved, right?
Of course, all ideas must pass through our God Tony, just as all bills must be passed by the parliament.
“Ehhh, maybe you can try. Eh actually… cannot lah. There is too much risk leh.”
After some intense debate, we admitted defeat. If the arm malfunctioned or lost balance just a little bit, there simply was not enough clamping force/security to catch the unit. We were imagining the ideal situation where the bottom side clamps and some minor locking profiles would be sufficient to keep the unit secured ALL THE TIME, under ALL SITUATIONS. This was, in an engineering context, simply asking for too much. One wrong push by the operator of the lifting system, or a slip by the technician, and the unit could be sent flying DOWNWARDS onto the floor, and possibly shatter into pieces, along with the sanity (and the jobs) of whoever witnessed that event.
It was time to put on our thinking caps again.
*thinking cap time*
*thinking cap time*
*thinking cap time*
*thinking cap time*
Oh, some additional arrivals today, by the way: 4 x 300mm Actuators (5000N ones); 100 x brackets for 2020 profile (clamping mechanism).
The actuators were indeed 5000N rated, a fact met with a big sigh of relief by the whole team. These were the main lifters of our primary arm, and we could allow for absolutely no leeway in the carrying capacity of these actuators.
Similar to the 750N ones, we did an informal test with the table. Here is a photo: (we’d like to emphasise that the person (whoever that was) in the photo was on the OTHER table, and there was NO ONE on the table that we were testing)
The table was lifted above the ground with absolutely no issues. Awesome! We still need to wait for the pillow blocks to arrive before we can build the arm, so we put that aside for now.
*thinking cap time*
*thinking cap time*
*I think we ate some food*
*Yea we definitely did. I ordered some Lei Cha from the vegetarian stall. Lei Cha is nice. I recommend Lei Cha.*
*thinking cap time*
*thinking cap time*
Eureka! After some time, we think we got the RIGHT idea.
Surprise, surprise. An idea so brutally simple that it was outright insulting to our collective intelligence.
Instead of clamping the pneumatic unit from the top, why not clamp it from the side? Why not?
No one really knows why we did not think of this idea. It was just an assumption that all of us were working with, and failed to challenge when all assumptions needed to be broken.
Here are the photos of the rough assembly that we got out by the end of Friday. As you can see, the clamping system now approaches the unit from one side of the base of the unit, rather than from its top.
Very beautiful pictures. Very beautiful clamps. Very beautiful project.
Here is a random easter-egg photo of 1 x Min Htoo drilling holes into the 2020 aluminium profiles so that they can be secured tightly onto the 3060 main aluminium profile and act as supports and locking profiles for the clamping mechanism.
Well, after a lot of ideating, trial and error, assembling, and some drilling and cutting, we were done for the day, with a much better outlook of what’s to come, and much healthier sanity levels. See you all!
