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The last big issue is that the cam follower was not actually interfacing with the profile until the very end of the slider travel. This appeared to be due to clearance issues as well as manufacturing error, enabled by a lack of a locating feature for the knife link bearing carrier.
While it was not an insurmountable issue, this project did give us some practical insight into why cam follower mechanisms have some drawbacks. Maintaining contact between the cam and cam profile is a non-negligible issue, and it seems that our usage of this mechanism contributed to the overall slop and rough motion. If we had been able to make a pure linkage system work, it would have likely have helped smooth the motion of our mechanism. This is clearly not an application demanding high precision or load capability, so it is easy to imagine these issues becoming much more difficult and cost-intensive to solve in those situations.
Mechanism Video:
Widget Connector url https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MOtppVDWFyw
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