I met with the guys at Shaltz Automation today, and they are going to help me finish up the construction of the pendulum hardware. I feel kind of guilty, because they took all the parts home with them to finish them up with equipment that I don’t have.
One of the tasks is cutting off the extra shaft length for the linear bearing. It comes 55″ long and needs to be trimmed to just under 48″. The problem is that it is hardened steel with a chrome coating, and hardly anything can cut it. Bill is going to try to cut it with a rubber saw blade, which I had never heard of. Apparently the friction heats up the metal, softens it and gradually removes it. As long as it works, I will be happy.
Dana is going to drill the holes in the pendulum. With the machine tools he has at home, he will be able to get the holes perpendicular to the rod and centered. He is also going to mount the bearing shaft on the shelf. After some discussion, we decided the best way to mount it is to use nylon spacers under the shaft mounting brackets, which will raise up the bearing shaft and make the cart level. With the equipment he has, he should be able to trim the spacers pretty accurately. This should be fairly easy to do, and the height can be adjusted later if necessary by cutting new spacers.
Therefore, by the end of the week I should have fully functional hardware, and I will just need to wait for the cRIO chassis to arrive so I can start controlling some motion.