Recent content by nateTheaweseome

I will need to try that out next time I'm working on the device.

Well thank you for clarifying this for me though.

That's fair. I guess I just wanted to do something quick but you brought up a good point. So based off what you suggested, I sketched out two positions of the arm (Red and Purple represents the 40lbf and 68lbf positions respectively). Point A is where the end brake cable fitting is secured...

So then ignoring the geometry of the arm (I just realized this is the position of the arm with 20lbf AKA piston closed; when I pull on the lever the angle/lengths will change), is the force decomposition correct? I am primarily concerned about the decomp for Fb. Say the arm in the snapshot is...

68lbf correct?

For each brake cable at fully extended position, wouldn't it be 34lbs?

Okay so it sounds like the force value I chose (40lbf initially for the lever arm since each brake cable is mounted to that hinge) was on the right track then. So it sounds like my calculations for the pulling force was wrong by setting up my moments incorrectly?

So my thought process was, if the compression force initially is 20lbs when the assembly is closed, the tension in each cable housing would be 20lbs (gradually increasing to 34lbs once max stroke is hit). Thus, the lever arm would see double that, which is why I initially chose 40lbs.

Not sure if the top down view will help lol but I also included an iso view. The black cable was a crude attempt to model the length of the brake cable but I highlighted it in green anyways. The blue stars represent where the brake cable fittings are rigidly mounted.

Should've made it more clearer my bad. The piston is mounted horizontally, on two steel extrusions, riding on 2 linear bearings (you can see the top roller rail in the photo). The gas piston will automatically have the extrusions stay closed, but when I pull on the lever, it forces the gas...

Well, being specific, there are two brake cables (sketched out in green). Each brake cable is mounted to a different end on the gas piston (red rectangle). The functionality of this arm is that when you pull down, it'll force the gas piston to separate/expand, and when you release, it'll...

Thanks for helping. The pistons/brake cables are represented by the horizontal force Fb in the new drawing. Yeah maybe I am unclear about the units here. This is the gas piston, and the "Compression Force, lbs" is 20.

The pivot is at Point A. The point of attachment to the brake cables, which is connected to the gas piston is what Fb represents. It's really attached to that hinged point that Fb goes across. 40lbf in red has a height displacement of 5.79"...I imagined that if I drew a dotted line across this...

Hey all, I'm either overthinking it or too tired but this problem should be an easy one to figure out but I'm stumped embarrassingly. Say in the photo above is a lever arm. I'm trying to backtrack to calculate the force a user must input (yellow) against a force (red). It can pivot around...