Air muscles

[neopj3]

Anyone have much experence with these.  I built a few and they kick ass.  each one can pull/lift 10# easy at around 50psi.  kolbalt tool makes a neat little portable regulator that uses paintball tanks as the air supply. only problem is I can't find air valves small enough and cheap enough.  any one run into this problem before?

[neopj3]

looks like I've got a tutorial on my hands.  nice

[Admin]

We get someone asking about air muscles about once every 2 or 3 months, mostly on how to do it.

A tutorial would make a great answer

[richard mackie]

Ive seen those air muscles a few times and i think I am going to try them eventually but having the tutorial would defiantly make me feel a little better about attempting it

[HDL_CinC_Dragon]

The only problem I have with air muscles is that they dont seem quite so reliable yet. Ive seen a few little demos of some and the muscles appear to steal a significant amount of air from eachother if your moving more than one at a time. It looks like you would need a lot of pressure in all your lines to account for that... maybe I could be wrong in this thinking?

[neopj3]

no your right, sorta.  the trick is to have a main tank, then a series of pressure sensors and one way valves to keep the lines in check.  easy huh

[neopj3]

I'll work on that tut this weekend maybe.  for sure over the holiday.

[Admin]

The only problem I have with air muscles is that they dont seem quite so reliable yet. Ive seen a few little demos of some and the muscles appear to steal a significant amount of air from eachother if your moving more than one at a time. It looks like you would need a lot of pressure in all your lines to account for that...

Only because the mechanical engineer on that project improperly spec'ed out the required pressure in the system

So if you have two muscles, each requiring 10 units of pressure, that means your compressor needs to deal out 20 units. If the muscles leak 2 units each, thats 24 units of pressure needed. If your compressor supplies less than that, then yea, the muscles will be much weaker when both are on.

But there could have been other reasons for the under spec'ing, such as financial reasons (bigger compressors are more expensive), or the system was not fully understood during the design phase (which happens often in research situations).

[nottoooily]

Got any photos/videos? How about speed, are they comparable to human muscles?

Anyone have much experence with these.  I built a few and they kick ass.  each one can pull/lift 10# easy at around 50psi.  kolbalt tool makes a neat little portable regulator that uses paintball tanks as the air supply. only problem is I can't find air valves small enough and cheap enough.  any one run into this problem before?

[neopj3]

the above questions are what i'm working on.  trig took a lot of my time and so did my new job.  I've got a few ideas of uses for them, like using them instead of servos.  .... ... . .

[Hawaii00000]

We're still waiting for that tutorial :p

[HDL_CinC_Dragon]

2 years this has been dead... 2 years...

[HDL_CinC_Dragon]

2 years...

[robot01]

oh .my god.2 years....