Latest Vex idea.

[I D Miller]

I'm a Vex guy love the versitality and the ability if it isn't right i can make something else without having to scrap anything. Any way here is my latest project. Will talk more on replys

[I D Miller]

Ok thats the basic of it. In the process of getting an autonomous balance system in place. but wan tot talk about the first thing everyone asks me.

How does the 4 Tank tracks work.

Well I knew from my work experience in real life that the bigger the crane the bigger the footprint is. Well the vex just wasn't wide enough to make me comfortable with making a wide base. So I have been playing with these Tmaxx Differentials, and I have been wanting to implement them into a machine in some way to show how valiable they could be to Vex. With the way vex mounts I had to put a half inch space between the tracks that was too close for me. So I went ahead and made half of the track foot print and was like woah I could add my diff here. So I did. It just so happens that 1/2 of the footprint is the width of the entire lifting assembly. so i made a duplicate system. The use of the diff's also allowed me to reduce the amount of motors and simplify the movement. I am using 2 Motors, 2 Diff's, and 4 tracks. When in operation they all have the same torque and turning is super nice because the 2 inner most tracks turn much more slowly than the outter 2 tracks.

[I D Miller]

I work around alot of super heavy duty cranes so I know this design very well works for mobile ground cranes with high lift. Took me some time to figure out how in the hell i was going to get the cabling aka stringing to work with Vex. But it operates flawlessly. You have 4 support beams. 1 is mounted to the frame and is immovable. the next one is is part of the support for the 3rd support and the 3rd helps stabalize the 4th. All of them are on simple gear ratios for the wonderful design of this crane there isn't much torque needed to move any of teh supports with or without a load. I still have a long way to go. a monumentious programing project and some minor tweeks and sensor and switch installations. There is also a counterweight system being tweaked it's in one of the pics posted. Will try to keep you all informed.