telescoping lift
Here is a Paint-hacked drawing of the telescoping lift I was talking about. This one uses 1/2" aluminum angle and goes to 14".
I suppose it can be scaled up and modified to elimiate the sliding metal contact, or even some real bearing pads will suffice. It can probably be done with 1" aluminum square tube from Home Depot.
Actuated using cables that tie each stage(in this case there's only one and a half) to the one before it, so a big winch can be used to raise it.
It's more work than drawer slides(which can probably be used in conjunction with the design) but I think it will be much lighter for a given size/height, and no "screwy" components.
Does anyone know what this is actually called? I have seen it on several ceiling service lifts and a few forklifts. Most of them actually did use anchored cables instead of nested cylinders.
From: Team Test Bot
2 comments:
What about using cables and a pulley to raise the drawer slide? We could use my personal favorite actuator - the wiper motor. That would be simpler than using threaded rods and screws nuts. then the problem would be how to get it to stay up. I have some spare solenoids I could donate.
Also, since we are worried about the weight and don't necessarily need the height, I was wondering if the slide could be modified by removing either the inner or the outer piece to lighten it up
I think just finding a smaller drawer slide is best for getting the weight down. These heavy duty ones are just way overkill on the weight. But I'll bring them to the RBNO and we can try taking them apart anyway.
Also, It would seem to me that the screw method would be easier because there's basically only a couple of parts. Dale has alot of experience with the cables and might be able to advise us on that. He also has some cable crimping tools for the job.
One more thing, lets try to get a drawing loaded from the CAD file into the CNC this month so we can get up to speed on quickly making the parts as they come up.
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