Week 4

This week we prepared our design ideas and gathered information in order to present to the class what direction we plan on taking the braking and propulsion systems. We hope to gather input from our teammates in order to continue our work and build a successful system. We are continuing our work on motor sizing and further calculations to determine what specific motor we plan on using and what components will be needed in order to begin the CAD models and implement them with the bogie system in place now. We plan to begin that work at the end of this week.

We plan on having a fail-safe brake system that would use and actuator and a spring along with a simple handle with a rubber attached at the end. The actuator will prevent the spring from compressing and will only compress if the actuator loses power, in which the lever will be pulled down and rub and cause friction along the rails to eventually stop the bogie. (Last week post contained a sketch that describes this process).

It is also determined we will be using brake disc and rotor in order to stop the bogie. Mounting of the system is still being determined as we determine how we drive the bogie (direct drive or two motors driving each side of whole bogie.)

Motor and brake system (with fail-safe brake) integrated to one side of the bogie.