Windlass

Windlass

Goal:

Make a working windlass with 500cm^2 of Derlin and 50 cm of a Derlin rod that can pick up a large bottle of water within 45 sec. The well is 12cm in diameter(across the tables). We’re also given a string that is 120cm long. The working windlass should be able to pull the 1 liter bottle 10cm above the table.

Initial design:

Orange: Main support

Green: Connecting structure( across the 12cm)

Red: Delrin rod

Black: Delrin sheet cut out

Thought process: I was initially very worried about the area that we were allowed to use, and I think the design reflects my concern. I choose triangles for main support because we talked about how triangles are most stable in class. The part with delrin rod and sheet cut outs are meant to be as close to a circle as possible for the windlass to be able to turn smoothly. Then lastly the tiny triangle with one delrin rod is to be attached to the larger turning part in the second row to turn the windlass.

Proto foam core:

There has been a few changes between the drawing to the foam core. The turning block tuned into a square instead of a triangle. The turning crank is now an oval for the looks.

Final product:

There are a few problems when we turned the foam core into the pre-final product.

1) When winding with the weight, the winding block and the winding crank were slipping. Because the press fit was not tight enough. So what me and Rinako came up with was that we drilled through the white delrin along with the rod and put a piano wire through it to keep it from slipping.

2) Only the main support structure is triangular. But what we did not anticipate was that when the two structures gets connected with each other, they from a rectangle. This allowed the entire structure to shift and wobble when cranking. What we did to resolve this was again, piano wire. But to make the windlass stable at the top we made bushings to hold the top of the trianglular main support in place on the delrin rod.

Conclusion:

I wouldn’t say that I am 100% satisfied with the  final product. The base could be wider, there should be more support to prevent wobbling. But I am glad it worked. Special thanks to Rinako for being AWESOME!!!!!!!!!