Hey guys! It's time for our monthly update on our Aliens Power Loader!
Although I must admit we were a little bit late this month.
Remember, this is one of our most complicated and expensive projects we've ever tackled on the channel!
And something you guys might not realize is...
This is just a passion project that Bogdan and I work on the weekends for.
We can't actually devote more time to it right now, because Bogdan is still in school and I have a business to run during the week.
With that in mind I'm actually really happy and quite impressed with how much we've actually accomplished in the past few months.
In our last update we attempted to make the Jaws of Life, but our design actually failed miserably.
Which is a good opportunity for problem solving!
You see, when the jaws exerted any kind of force they bent open, almost like a ducks beak...
The issue? well it seemed like it would work based on the cad design and the finite element analysis that we preformed using solidworks
in practical application we overlooked the slop in the system and the strength of the rail design which we had settled on to cut costs.
Because proper rails are very, very, VERY expensive!
With this much work put into it we can't let the jaws stay like this.
So, in this episode, we're going to completely re-design them to be stronger and more rigid!
Let's let Bogdan go over the new design.
So as you guys saw in the last episode of the power loader, we had some issues with the gripper.
So we considered multiple options.
[Reasons why we didn't choose those parts]
And then we came across this:
High load oil embedded flanged sleeve bearings!
14,000 lbs for 19 dollars?
1 and 1/2 in diameter, 75,000 psi yield strength, 73 dollars!
Let me show you the design we came up with.
Here we have two 1 and 1/2 in. hardened steel shafts, with bushings at the top and the bottom of the finger.
And that will allow the gripper to move up and down smoothly.
This design should be way more rigid than the previous one!
In order to make sure our design is going to work,
we actually put it through a solidworks stress analysis.
And we can see: at the tip of the gripper is the red, and that's the maximum point of displacement
how much the gripper will actually flex or bend.
And that's actually less than 7mm which is significantly better than our previous design.
So, with our previous stress analysis in solidworks we calculated about 4cm of deflection however,
that did not account for the slop in the bearings and the guide rails warping during welding.
With the new design since the bushings are much higher tolerance and we're not going to be welding the linear guide rails,
those problems should be omitted.
I'm satisfied with these results, let's actually go modify the gripper.
So this is the shim that was inside of the rail that was holding the bearings parallel,
and, huh, it's not parallel anymore so we're gonna need guide rails.
Look at that! 3 dimensional plasma cutting!
James: Ooouuu, so what are these?
Bogdan: They're bushings on linear rails. High strength bushings!
James: So hopefully the gripper is not going to duck face anymore!
James: Sweet. This looks way more robust than last design.
James: Nice work Bogdan! Bogdan: One more to go!
James: Looking good!
James: That's a nice shirt you're wearing! Could our audience get their own Hacksmith evolution?
From tspring.com/thehacksmith?
Merch link in bio right now!
Alright so Bogdan has the gripper design all assembled now, but now, we need to actually weld it in place.
And we need to make sure the jaws are perfectly parallel before we do that because,
we're actually going to weld along here, and here.
So what we're doing is we're using these ratchet straps to actually lift the grippers up, off of the cylinders,
to make sure they don't touch the inside of here so they slide back and forth and then too:
We gotta bring these together using the hydraulics and clamp something that's perfectly parallel,
so that through the whole movement of the jaws they stay nice and straight not like the duck jaws we had previously.
So let's do that!
Again we're gonna have some flex like this, as you can see it's clamped down here, and what we're gonna do is
using ratchet straps, we can clamp this together and the hopefully everything works!
Alright now that we made sure it's parallel this way, we just need to make sure the jaws are parallel like this.
There!
Bogdan: Perfectly balanced... James: as all things should be...
bogdan: I'm just going to align that there...
Bogdan: Now that it's all tacked up, let's see if it moves!
James: It's time to test the new design by crushing, a can of Crush.
James: Oh my god! Yes!
James: I like it! Now, man vs machine!
James: Alright so this is looking really promising we're using two 1 and 1/2 in. hardened steel shafts
along with bushings on these pipes attached to each, so they actually have a very large engagement on that
which means they really shouldn't flex very much while we're doing it, so let's finish welding and then we can paint it, and then we can crush things!
Bogdan: so after welding the bushing tubes into place, we attempted to remove the actual tube used to prevent
the thing from shrinking or warping using a hydraulic press.
And it did get out about an inch, but then the actual tube sheared in half...
So we're going to need a different method.
James: So... We haven't had any luck getting the pipe out of the welded pipe...
And then we were like: We need an arbour press! We don't have an arbour press...
But our neighbor just got an antique massive forging old school arbour press and he's in the process of fixing it
and it seems to work right now so we're gonna go try and use it to see what happens!
This has to be 80 years old at least.
This thing has to weigh over 1000lbs.
And it's practically one piece of steel.
It's stuck in there good!
This would of been so, SO perfect if it worked.
We need a real hydraulic press.
We need to get that pipe out of the gripper somehow so, we went and got a hydraulic press!
Welcome to the hydraulic press channel!
So, we got out pipe here which we wanna try and push out the bottom
we have a bunch of spacer plates here right now for now just to see if it actually budges, really hope it does.
Faster Ian, FASTER!
It's almost there! We did it!
Holy cr*p!
This was a wise investment.
[Can shake]
James: Alright! We have all the parts made now,
it's time to reassemble!
Bogdan: Alright! Let's get that motor on!
Bogdan: Ok, now we just need to put the whole gripper onto here.
James: we're almost there Bogdan! Just one more screw!
James: You see, as an engineer it's always important to go down with the actual assembly and see the things you've designed actually be made...
because then you'll realize that in solidworks everything seems simple, but in real life it is not.
Bogdan: We actually have to go all the way around to the other valve!
James: gosh there's no slop, what a shame...
it would really help us install this...
James: Ok, open!
Let's crush something!
For the initial test, we're gonna how Mjolnir holds up!
Alright, go for it.
Oh my god! OH MY GOD! Mjolnir is worthy!
Terrible idea #2!
Oh my god!
Wow! It folded so perfectly!
James: It works! no flex! Bogdan: It only took 4 hours to assemble.
James: That it did...
Alright so the new gripper design is done!
We're using two 1 and 1/2 in. hardened steel shafts with bushings riding on both edges and basically there's no slop in the system now.
So I'm actually pretty excited to see what this thing can actually do.
So we've got a nice pile of victims, this is all stuff we've reclaimed from the garbage.
We've got a live shell here, this is from a... Gun thing?
Anyways! To start, we're going to crush Deadpool!
Let's see what happens.
Riley I need an assistant, you may press this button- STOP!
Go! Oh boy!
He's paper thin!
Oh he's so light!
I need something to throw!
That is a quality vase!
Evan: Uh oh! Run!
Danger: explosif-
Next!
Nooooo!
[sad violin music]
You know, we provably should of taken the battery out... Or!
Close!
And now we're going to destroy an apple.
And that is how to fold a mac book!
I see death...
This alarm clock radio!
James: Is it too strong or- oh... Riley: Huh? What was that you were saying?
Yo' fool you're playing this thing wrong!
There's definitively a lack of fire in this test so we have a 6000 mA power lipo battery
Oh my god!
Open! Open! Open!
Safety bucket!
Into the car!
Oh oh it's-
Alright, that was pretty awesome!
The new design works flawlessly! There's barely any flex in the jaw anymore,
we still need to route the hydraulic hoses obviously because they're just hanging out.
But this is a really good sign, we've actually already started to work on the second arm!
So we're going to be able to duplicate this whole thing, then we're going to build the body and the legs.
Make sure you subscribe because you're not going to want to miss this project!
It's our biggest, and I think, the best project we've done so far.
Who are you?