Monday, December 8, 2014

Modification to Syringe Hydraulic Arm

Currently the most popular project on my http://www.ideas-inspire.com website is the Syringe Hydraulic Arm.  Views to this project come from all over the world, with the greatest coming from India but the largest concentration of views are coming from cities in the United States. My assumption is this must be a school project in many US schools.  This is has been a project in the Engineering Through Models class for the last two years as part of College for Kids at Winona State University. Whenever I bring my sample for display kids are always drawn to this project.



Syringe Hydraulic at Summerfest 2014

                                                                                                                                                   
In designing the arm I tried to make it as simple as possible with wood materials that are easily found and needed a minimum of cutting. I do try making improvements to my projects over time. The latest addition came about not because of any real problem but because I noticed how when the wood arm was pushed up first all the force was on a small edge on the left, then it was pushing fairly flat but then moved to the opposite edge. What was missing from my design was a pivot point between the plastic syringe plunger and the wood arm.











My easy fix to this has been to cut a short length of rigid plastic tubing and hot glue it to the flat surface of the syringe. The wood arm now moves around the curved surface of the tubing and it appears the operation is smoother.  Ideally I think the better solution would be to come up with a bearing that has a round shaft pivoting in a tube. I will have to give this greater thought, if you build the project maybe you will have a better idea.


Rigid Tube Added 



Bill Kuhl

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