Turntable base with dual axles through it.
Unfinished & unpolished but I'm very happy with the concept.
About this creation
Hey, this will be my first post here so be gentle :)
I've not been building with Lego for nearly 7 years now, but started again very recently, combing some very old with some newer sets. I was bored today and decided to start building some sort of robot arm. I made several of those long, long ago but this time I wanted to build one that contained no motors in the actual arm, bypassing the weight and cable problems that it brings. Instead I started looking for a way to keep all the motors in the base structure and somehow getting more than one axle through the middle of a large turntable.
The photos show the very raw design, its only the base and needs polishing in the form of some size reduction and better aesthetics, but I'm very satisfied with the basic idea and the fact that it works so well.
Technical stuff:
Three motors at the base of a large turntable, one rotates the table itself, the other two are sent through the middle and then split again resulting in two independently rotating axles (short gray ones on the photos) available for performing actions at the top of the turntable. (I'm thinking of a simple arm and hand structure myself)
A dark gray differential makes this possible - in hindsight a blindingly simple solution, but I haven't been able to find any other designs that use it. It all fits very snugly around the turntable and with some tinkering could end up more compact than the current form.
As mentioned, its been years since I spent time with Lego so comments are welcome.
- Tim
*update1
I re-worked the base so it's now much more compact. Still not quite as small as it could be due to the old 9v motors (the newer ones would not need the worm gears and thus save a lot of space). I also managed to get a better pic of the mechanism:
The left axle goes right through the middle, the other one drives the body of the differential, and this is picked up again at the top by the 16 tooth gear visible in the third picture.
Comments
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I like it |
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April 3, 2011 |
Cool! You could build a really sweet truck around this! Great Work! |
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I made it |
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August 29, 2010 |
I kind of expected not to be the first, but a quick search didn't yield any results. The size of mine is currently restricted by the fact that I only have the old 9v motors to work with which need massive gearing down before reaching usable torque.
The way the differential fits inside almost makes it seem like it was made to do this :) |
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Not bad for a start, if its 7 years since you have build width LEGO Technic.
If you want to see a more compact version then have a look at Jennifer clarks homepage, just do a Google search or have a look at
Brickshelf and search for "turntable drive" |
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By Tim
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