I am planning to build pneumatic robot. What I need is proportional servo valve suitable for this purpose. Does anybody has seen such thing on the web? robert
pneumatic robot
Mar 02, 2004
2 Replies
You've kinda hit upon the reason why there are few pneumatic robots. There are no viable valves. Proportional servo valves are big, expensive, and power hungry. Dynalloy
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uses nitinol to make a proportional valve. It's small, quiet, and less expensive than comparable solenoid or servo valves ($8 when ordered in bulk), but it's still difficult to drive and a huge power hog. Plus Dynalloy only offers it as a demonstration product, so you have to buy tons of them for the price per unit to become reasonable.
Maybe in a decade we'll see some improvements with polymers that'll solve the problems inherent with SMAs. But for now robotic pneumatics is a bleak and cumbersome field.
Check out
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On the Motors and Muscles page you will find Merlin Systems Corp and several other suppliers for pneumatic "muscles".
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