I have an application which would work very nicely using a rack-and-pinion. The problem is: the environment is inherently very dirty. A typical rack-and-pinion arrangement would quickly seize.
Does anybody know of a self-cleaning rack-and-pinion design?
Consider the movement of a feed pawl on a conveyor. When it moves forward it doesn't do much, but on the return stroke it pulls the conveyor.
Is there a branch of Mechanical Engineering which deals with devices which do one thing in one direction and something else in the other?
