Air Impeller

[Sunny]

Sean's Response:

"It was out of a shop vac actually. We're using one this year too. LOL"

Might be worth it to get a shop vac and see what we can find. Or maybe mod the one that Dallas bought or something.

[Tanner]

True.

1771 has a impeller? Pics?

-Tanner

[Sunny]

Eh, it was in one of the early forums of this year. They were talking about the possibility of using suction and then 1771's mentor posted about their impeller. I'll try and find the post and report back a bit later.

[Sunny]

Here are some of the shop vacs that Sean pointed me to.

http://www.toolup.com/DeWALT/DC500.html ... nAodLHCrJQ

http://www.amazon.com/s/?ie=UTF8&keywor ... rembazfh_e

I'm convinced that we are both slow and our impeller is extremely inefficient.

The pump thing we have going right now *might* work, but it's gonna suck battery like no one's business, and I think that it won't be as effective as we're counting on it to be.

EDIT: The following is a picture of GSMST's impeller.

Both pictures 17 and 18 are pictures of their impeller.

http://picasaweb.google.com/spam224/Sat ... 0135183586

It looks like it's definitely attached 1:1, and from Luke, this is what they're using tomorrow.

[Michael Kapp]

We still don't know for sure exactly why our last attempt at retrofitting a shop vac failed miserably. If we get a new shop vac, we should study it while taking it apart this time so that we can see exactly how it works as efficiently as possible, so that when we modify it for the robot, we can make sure we are utilising it effectively and properly. it would also be cool to see if we can get an impeller to somehow fit one of those suction cups without losing pressure.

[freds]

Definitely not the same vacuum setup they used before. In the types they might be using, they are all out of 12vdc units vs 120vac units.

The key is finding a unit that we adapt a FP to directly.

Our testing was not successful............there is no doubt we were not spinning the impeller fast enough.............and yes paying more attention to the construction would be advantageous.

Advantage. If we can use the yellow funnel, then correct orientation of the robot to the ball is less critical than the small suction cups. Power...probably less power drawn by the FP vs the compressor.

Which is best..............we have to find a way to adapt a FP directly for RPMs.

[freds]

Picture must be distorted.

That is the shortest FP motor I have ever seen.

http://picasaweb.google.com/spam224/Sat ... 0135183586

[Sunny]

I believe that either the rest of the motor is hidden in the shadow, or the mount calls for the motor to sit inside the black metal housing, or the housing is just made like that.

- Sunny

[Tanner]

Dad's hard work on the impeller. Looks quite good.

He says we'll have to replace to the motor mount and replace it with a plastic one for weight. It really feels quite heavy still.

-Tanner

[Sunny]

Dad's hard work on the impeller. Looks quite good.

He says we'll have to replace to the motor mount and replace it with a plastic one for weight. It really feels quite heavy still.

-Tanner

Looks like you guys ripped the motor out of the casing.

I'm not sure how much that system weights, but we have a good 20 pounds to play with.

And for now, we should test *that* before we go into the whole trying to make it better.