Manufacturing
All of our main links and parts that we designed on SolidWorks were either 3D printed (using a Prusa 3D, Raise2Plus, and FlashForge CreatorPro) and an Epilog Laser cutter we have at Anna Hiss Gymnasium. The only components we did not fabricate ourselves were the parts in the bill of materials.
Assembly
The project was sitting on two platforms made of plywood, the top platform contained the bulk of the mechanism, the bottom platform was added for stability and to have an organized setup when meshing the mechanisms and the electronics together.
We then proceeded to mount the slider and shaft that would be sliding at a higher velocity in the end.
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The following piece is the smaller gear that is attached to the Dc motor used. This gear would be meshing with a bigger gear that give us a 2:1 step up in torque.
When the two gears have been assembled together, we then start assembling the braking mechanism that allows the motor to decouple from the shaft when it is sliding out.
The following image shows how the the bottom board looks like when it is assembled with the braking mechanism in place.
This next image is showing a previous iteration of the motor mount/motor, but we can see here that the slider block and shaft are connected with our links used with the four-bar mechanism, which in turn those links are connected to the case that is covering our braking mechanism.
The final product is displayed in the last image of this page. We can see how the electronics were just mounted on the top platform using zip ties that run through holes we just drilled out. The final motor mount for our DC motor is upside down so that it is able to drive the driver gear. As stated before, we then assemble the braking mechanism over the driven gear which in turn is connected to the four-bar links. These links are pivoting about each other with a few small ball-rolling bearings. This was to allow a clean frictionless motion between links. Finally, the third link is connected to the slider block that has to move to the right along the shafts axis in order to compress the spring used to generate out desired final velocity. A quick note on fasteners, we used a variety of nuts and bolts/screws to assemble everything together, however it might not seem like it due to a few clever tricks to conceal these fasteners with the use of 3D printing. Inquire with Frank Regal, if you have anymore questions on 3D printing parts embedded with fasteners.
