2009:Mechanical 2.10.2009

Notes from Night of 2/10

(accomplished after 8:30pm)

1. Filed down keys

2. Assembled Pulleys on Shafts

3. Installed Shafts & Belts

4. Tensioned Belts

5. Ran Conveyor System for First Time

Kim's Email from Night of 2/10:

I wanted to share some notes from last night so that all the work we did wasn’t entirely undone this evening, and people didn’t have questions.

Communication is a wonderful thing…

FOR TONIGHT
Still to Do before we give it to the programmers (6:30-7:00pm):
1. WEIGH IT
2. MEASURE THE HEIGHT - we need to know how much upward room we have
3. Chain up the motors for the conveyor (Do the sprockets need to be keyed still?? Or did we have the wrong sprockets??)

4. Tighten up the front top shaft

Then lets give it to the programmers so they can test and see if they can run everything from the controls, make sure the electrical is wired up correctly, and get a feel for how the upper system works with their code. We need to give them at LEAST a half an hour while the mechanical team is HANDS OFF.

In between programming tests (7:30-9:30pm):
5. Connect up the trap door motor setup (I believe it needs programming testing first)
6. Install Sensor Mounts
7. Cut & Install Lexan Panels, guards, etc.
8. Install Camera
(9) Adjust Belt Spacing (tentatively, we might want to hold this until Thursday)

NOTES ON SETUP
1. We made the executive decision to just go with keys that only fit under the pulleys as it was easier to adjust and make changes, the double key (2 pulleys per key) was just too hard and too time consuming). That said, I think currently the top front shaft has double keys, but the others worked really well.

2. The front center double pulley axels need to be as far back (into the robot) as they can be, because we need to mount the camera in the front center of the robot, likely on the bar that goes across the front.

3. The front top shaft was loosened just before we left because we noticed it was bowing under the tension of the belts. It was probably us just putting too much pressure on it when we installed, but we werent sure of the optimum tension, so that will take some tweaking.

4. The chicken plucker on the bottom back shaft got stuck in one of the Vbelts (on the far right side), and caused the Vbelt to roll off the pulley.

5. Eric & Larry noticed the electrical wires of the top shaft motor were going to get hit by the chicken pluckers, so they reconfigured the wiring and made it tight to the motor. Larry & Brenton created and installed the guard that is on there now, so we shouldn’t have any problems with it now.

6. We initially installed all of the shafts backwards (left-right-wise), and it was only as we were finishing tightening the last two that Josh noticed they were backwards and that we had no way to drive them. With a little thought we realized that turning them all around would cause them to hit the electrical board anyway, so we decided to just flip the bottom two drive shafts, and we moved the pulleys on them to line up with the ones on the upper shafts once they were installed.

7. ADJUSTMENTS ON THE ROBOT ARE EASY!!! We were able to move shafts, keys, pulleys, belts, bearing mounts, all without taking anything off the structure. We even exchanged two belts on the center two shafts without fully ripping the whole thing apart. So PLEASE don’t pull what is working apart. There is definitely a lot of room for optimization, but you all designed in plenty of adjustment room, so please use it, don’t think things need to come apart to make adjustments. With a twist of a setscrew and a tap on the key, the pulleys move very easily. With a socket and an allen key the shafts move up and down and in and out.

8. Getting tension & levelness on the belts is HARD. Our procedure last night was that Tom would use a 2x4 and some shim blocks to get some leverage and push up or down on the shafts to give them tension, Cynette would pull the shafts into or out of the robot to give them forward/back direction, we would have a level on the shaft to make sure it was horizontally level, and Josh and I would tighten down the bearing blocks with an allen wrench and socket or wrench.

9. Working behind the electrical board is tough. Its doable, but would be faster if we slot the electrical board. I have already notified them of this, but would be something we need to remember to do before we ship the robot, as it will make our lives easier when we have to adjust the belts.

10. 1:30am is really late… or early…

11. We think we noticed that the sprockets for the drive of the conveyor werent keyed, we might have had the wrong sprockets, but at first glance, that's what we saw. If so, we may be loosing time if we cant get those done right away. We really need to be paying attention to the details now, they are what is throwing us off a lot.

12. There are two different sets of belts in the middle of the front center shafts. They are both labeled the same (3L340s if I remember right), but one set seemed a tad longer. We ended up putting the ones we thought seemed a little longer on the outside, and the ones that seemed a tad shorter on the inside. Everything seemed to hold up ok, and maybe with a bit of stretch it will all work out, but it should be looked at and at least remembered so we don’t get bowing or anything undesirable.

13. Probably should have this near 1. but the keys all needed to be ground down a bit to fit into the pulleys. We got enough small ground down keys to get under all the pulleys, and they should be relatively interchangable, and I think we had some extras.

14. We didn’t clean… we were exhausted… there are still parts, tools and dirt out on the tables, one of the first things we should probably do is clean up when we get there so we can start fresh and we know where everything is.

Depending on how much work we have left, we should probably set up a time schedule so people don’t leave in the middle of tasks. Only set up a task for the night if you are going to be able to complete it. As we found out last night the handoff with people headed out quickly was semi-painful, and while we figured it out, it probably took much longer as those of us left didn’t have a complete idea of what some of the intentions were. If you arent going to be able to stay for the entire duration of a project/task, either find someone to work WITH you that can, or don’t start it. Time is too precious right now to be wasting it on misunderstandings/confusion.

All that said… it looks like a robot… smells like a robot… and maybe we can have Dave B see if it tastes like a robot!

In the words of MortalKombat… FINISHHIM!!!!