Ohhh noooooo, Mr Raman is on leave 🙁
This meant that we can’t:
- Grind our 2x 15cm rods down to fit into the pillow blocks better.
- Get our 1x 25cm rod
Here are the two too-big rods:
The 15cm rod (on right) is unable to fit into a significant length of the pillow block. The diameter of the pillow block probably isn’t consistent or has some (invisible to the naked eye) slight protrusions here and there, which caused the rod to be unable to fit into the pillow block.
One of our 15cm rod (on left) can fit into the pillow block quite well but cannot go past the black screw hole portion of the pillow block. As we can see, there is a slight protrusion from the black screw hole area. This may cause the interference fit between the 15cm rod and pillow block to be too tight.
Even though the rod can be rotated quite smoothly within the pillow block, even with the poor fit seen in the rod and pillow block on the right, we decided that it is not safe to use it for our lifting arm. Safety first!!!!
On the bright side, some of our ball joints arrived. These, pictured below, are typically used in cars for stick shift control. They seem to be pretty strong.
Here is a video of the ball joint rotation:
Here are some possible double ball joint configurations which we can try out:
We will brainstorm the pros and cons of each configuration before giving yall the update!!
Lastly, we need to settle how the Programmable Logic Controllers will work.
We bought a wireless controller which has the up, down, left, right button for remote control. However, we haven’t figure out what Programmable Logic Controller to use yet.
We had two possible choices for lifting arm control:
- Manual control of individual actuators
- Manual control of “Up, Down” motion
Manual control of individual actuators will mean that the controller will have a set of 3 up and down buttons for all three actuators. SMRT technicians will then have to know which buttons to press to control the actuators to raise the units to different heights. While this will be easier for us to programme, the SMRT technicians will need to be keenly familiar with the stroke length and angle of each actuator. This may be challenging for the SMRT technicians to master. Also, the motion of the lifting arm may be slower as actuators cannot move together, upwards.
Manual control of “Up, Down” motion will mean that the controller will have one set of up and down button, which controls all 3 actuators. We will have to do careful motion study in real life, with measurements, translate this into an algorithm with up and down motion and then code it into our Programmable Logic Controller. While this will be a lot more time-consuming and challenging to programme, the SMRT technicians will find the lifting arm easier and more efficient to use. Also, the motion of the lifting arm may be faster as the actuators can move together, upwards.
hmmmmmmm, thinking