REV Rail Deformation and Faults of Design
Tags: design and mechanicalPersonhours: 4
Task: Analyze Source of Gripper break
As you can see from the video above, the REV rail twisted when the gripper rotated. Due to the high torque caused by intaking glyphs (4.02 Nm), the rails were required to turn very quickly. When we were designing the gripper, we didn't consider the friction among the nylon parts. Before we noticed the rails twisting, we heard squeaking noises (now we know its because of the high friction). The twisting led to the much slower grippers and a twisted frame.
To fix the issue, we needed to create less friction in the REVolution parts. We don't have enough time to remove the grippers and switch out the parts so we just used Teflon powder to lube the REVolution parts. It wasn't necessary to switch out the REV rail because since the twisting occurred uniformly. After testing the grippers again, the grabber moved properly.
Next Steps:
In order to not replicate the same issue, we must switch out the REVolution parts frequently. Even after Championships, we have Texas UIL so we can fix the gripper by then. Next year, we hope to use REVolution for our drive train, so we must be extremely careful with the parts.