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Re: curved rail and bearing design ideas welcomed

Dear Smitty Two:

ideas on any aspect. My first question would be, is > there anything off the shelf that resembles a linear > actuator, that's curved. If not, anything that would > qualify as build it yourself components, and finally, > if it all has to be made from scratch, what are > some ideas about how it might be done?

Clevis mounting below the "plane" the trolley moves on, on the "west side", connected with a clevis to the trolley. This allows only that the distance between the lower mounting point and the attachment on the trolley be controled by the actuator, without actually requiring the trolley go elsewhere.

Additionally, the track could bear a drive chain that would follow the track, and the trolley affixed to that. (Think garage door opener.)

David A. Smith

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N:dlzc D:aol T:com (dlzc)
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Does it have to be a rail arrangement? Would a trapezoid / parallelogram arrangement work?

rob

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Rob

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Narasimham

Take a look at

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That'll get you started on the rail and carriage. NSK, Tech-Spec, and other companies in the linear motion systems field, will have similar products. Search the web for "linear motion" and you'll find more than you can read. These are all relatively inexpensive, astonishingly precise; and the standard offering will give pretty much any size you'll need. The size and mass you need to deal with is nothing compared to what even the small versions of these products will handle.

Tracking the motion can be done in countless ways, depending on how accurate it needs to be. A simple rotary encoder could be placed at the center of the arc, and coupled to the trolley by a rod or bracket. That would give angular positioning information. Or, you could track circumferential motion with a curved linear encoder like the one shown at:

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Hope this helps.

Kirk Gordon __ I'm sick of spam. The 2 in my address doesn't belong there.

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Kirk Gordon

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