Subject:
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Re: RCX Controlled Air Compressor Tester
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.robotics, lugnet.build
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Date:
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Wed, 29 Sep 1999 22:48:34 GMT
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Viewed:
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1090 times
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In lugnet.robotics, Ralph Hempel writes:
> I really wish there was a way to control pneumatics with Mindstorms....
Actually, I've been thinking about this for awhile, and I think there's an
"easy" way to switch pneumatics under motor control. The rubber air hoses can
be pinched shut with a reasonably small amount of force. It seems to me that
you could use a cam on an axle to open or close one (or several) air hoses by
turning a motor to a particular angle.
You'd probably also need a master shutoff valve (on a separate motor?) so that
you could shut off the air pressure while you rotate the cam shaft to the
desired position. After the cams are set, you'd open the master valve to
actuate the pistons.
If you wanted to be stingy with RCX inputs and outputs, you could use a
progressive gear ratio setup to control any number of cams "independently" off
of a single motor. And you could use one of my favorite motor-saving
mechanisms, Michael Powell's directional transmission, to control the master
valve when the motor turns in one direction and the cam shaft when it turns in
the other direction.
OK, so you still need at least one motor output and probably a rotation sensor
input to control this thing. And a battery box and another motor to run the
compressor. But once you've got that, you could probably do some fairly
complex switching to control the pneumatics from the RCX.
Of course I haven't tried this, but maybe someone out there will... If so,
please come back and tell us all how you make out.
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Message has 1 Reply:
Message is in Reply To:
 | | RE: RCX Controlled Air Compressor Tester
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| (...) Gee, thanks! (...) Let me know how this works out. Strangely enough, I have never actually used the pump do do anything other than test my limit switch. Here's where I whine and complain about having a good, paying job and a house, and wife, (...) (25 years ago, 29-Sep-99, to lugnet.robotics, lugnet.build)
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