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[A] Having to fully remodel

A project log for T^2 Tiles [gd0095]

If a competing company produced a home-use version of Aperture Laboratories Panels.

kelvinakelvinA 05/24/2023 at 22:420 Comments

I'm inside the Fusion360 model, and while I think it's possible... there are so many changes required that I'd essentially have to remodel from scratch. 

I'd also need to look into reducing the gearboxes, as well as ensuring that they have the torque efficiency I need. I think there have been a few videos testing harmonic drives since I designed the untested one way back in 2020, such as this one 5 months ago:

If I recall correctly, I'm looking for a torque increase of about 15 - 20x. This was for the larger 256mm tiles though. Now it's 160mm and I'd like to also have an inter-tile gap size of under 2mm (instead of 9mm in the current file). This should mean that the torque requirements are slightly reduced. The video above shows that both gearboxes increased the torque 16x with a reduction of 25, thus 64% efficient.

Then I've got to think of the main rotational axis. I could keep the 3D-printer-V-wheel solution, but I'm also thinking that I should eliminate the requirement for a fixed frame and make the Tiles act more like Nanoleaf's. This would require the Tile to be self supporting, and a large metal bearing could do that. Obviously, ball bearings will be too expensive:

For a bearing this large, it may be possible to just use a single bearing, but these kinds of bearings are designed such that you'd either need 2 of these or this kind of bearing along with a thrust bearing. For both a cheaper and lighter solution, a lasy suzan bearing is likely the better choice:

This is £8.07 on average.

My concern is that these are primarily used in turntables, where it matters a lot less if there's a bit of backlash. I'm also reading this forum that discusses (robotic) applications for lazy susans and they're rather subpar; ok for turrets, not for arms. What I really want is a slew bearing, but haahahahaahahaahahaaha £156/ea = 360nopescope:

As you may be able to guess, these Tiles are less of a "can it be done?" and more of a "how much will it cost to be done?" problem.

Back to the wheels, they might be better for another reason: actuating the first axis similar to this:

Actually, I might just try plain bearings since I've got 200 of them from the scrapped #SecSavr Sublime [gd0036] project. In an ideal solution, they'd be dual-ball bearings, but I just have ultracheap normal ones. I would need some way of preventing the entire thing from sliding out. Perhaps a thrust bearing could be used? There's also a "sandwich" described on the aforementioned forum:

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