Auto Reversing Winch

[Brian Rupnow]

Today was the first trial run of the automatic reversing winch. It is doing what I wanted it to do. This is kind of a cobbled together set-up, but it certainly serves as a test of my concept. Things are a bit jerky at the beginning of the video, but then it smooths out and seems to work quite well.

 

[Brian Rupnow]

I'm quite excited about this, and want to move forward to a point where it is being ran with my vertical hit and miss engine model. But--My back is sore. Very, very sore. Sore enough that I've convinced myself to stay out of my shop and garage for a few days. I hope to have a video of it running by the end of the week, but until my back eases off, nothing is going to happen.---Brian

 

[Brian Rupnow]

I spent yesterday with a heating pad on my back, and no shop work at all. Today my back feels much better. so after making a new weight and some other small changes on the winch mechanism, I was ready for test #2 of the automatic reversing winch. I'm quite pleased with this, and will be removing the electric drill and bolting the vertical hit and miss engine into place this afternoon.

 

[Brian Rupnow]

So--Here we have it. The reversing winch is being driven by the hit and miss engine. Unfortunately, the speed which it is running at doesn't clearly show the engine's hit and miss action. I am somewhat "tied in" to what you see. The rpm of the engine is fixed. It is running at the "optimum" speed for this engine. I can change pulley diameters to slow things down, but in doing so, this inversely changes the amount of torque that the engine exerts on the winch, and affects the point at which the hit and miss mechanism on the engine operates. The hit and miss mechanism is very sensitive to torque loading on the engine. The diameter of the winch drum itself is "fixed". I may play around a bit with the weight on the end of the winch rope, but for now, this is what we have.

 

[CFLBob]

I've been watching the videos as they show up on YouTube, not by following here. I have a different ID on YouTube that comes from using my Gmail address, so you wouldn't recognize me.

I wonder if the issue that makes it hard to tell if hitting increases under load and missing increases when the weight is dropping could be addressed by spooling up the cord that flips the lever? Instead of just raising and lowering it the meter or so it does (a guess), you had several times that amount of cord wrapped around a spool. One spool on the top, one on the bottom.

I can sure see some complications with that, but how else to address that you'd like it to alternate working hard with hardly working?

 

[awake]

Seems like the basic issue that keeps from seeing a clear difference in load vs. unloaded mode is that it is just too fast. When you ran it with the drill, you were using a much larger pulley on the clutched gear reduction. If you could switch back to that, it would slow it down at least a bit ... ?

 

[ShopShoe]

Brian,

I do see progress. I also see that things are going fast and I understand the constraints you have to work within.

A couple of thoughts: 1) A couple of pulleys in the lifting line "block and tackle" style. Half of the travel with a given length of lifting line. Might need more weight to compensate? 2) Pulling weight up a ramp that increases in pitch. The inspiration comes from the sleds used in competitive tractor pulling. (And my High School Physics teacher would have loved to put that calculation on a test.)

--ShopShoe