Hey everyone. First time posting here. A little about me: I just graduated from the university with my B.S. in Mechanical Engineering... And now I have gone a gotten myself a job. Cool right? 
Anyhow, with my lack of experience and the fact that I am the only mechanical engineer at my place of work, I am finding it very hard designing my first project all by myself. In school we always worked in teams (and i liked that). Everyone has some different idea to bring to the table, you sift through, select all the best ones and put them together.
So, on to what I am actually working on. I need to design a cleaning station. This cleaning station will clean a square socket (that detail isn't too important)..
I can design a stand, and interface no problem. But I don't know how to find/design an electromechanical actuator that will simply plunge down until some sort of limiter i.e. torque limiter, force transducer, or strain gauge (or something maybe you can suggest) tells it "ok, that's enough force (probably 30grams)" and then returns to the original position. And is controlled by a button press that makes it execute that cycle once or twice (or maybe a few more times). I imagine it wouldn't take too much programming and could be done with a small PIC microcontroller and a few relays.
Some additional info:
1. The size of the socket is about 27mm x 27mm
2. Gram force required to stay under about 30g.
3. Two design concepts
a.) actuate a 27 x 27 plunger into the socket several times for cleaning.
b.) actuate the socket down to a 27mm x 27mm cleaning block several times.
Now, I am the only engineer working here at the moment. (other than a guy who has a degree in polymer engineering)... So, I don't even know where to start as far as doing this project. Can anyone offer any advice on how to design the actuator setup?
Thank you in advance.
Anyhow, with my lack of experience and the fact that I am the only mechanical engineer at my place of work, I am finding it very hard designing my first project all by myself. In school we always worked in teams (and i liked that). Everyone has some different idea to bring to the table, you sift through, select all the best ones and put them together.
So, on to what I am actually working on. I need to design a cleaning station. This cleaning station will clean a square socket (that detail isn't too important)..
I can design a stand, and interface no problem. But I don't know how to find/design an electromechanical actuator that will simply plunge down until some sort of limiter i.e. torque limiter, force transducer, or strain gauge (or something maybe you can suggest) tells it "ok, that's enough force (probably 30grams)" and then returns to the original position. And is controlled by a button press that makes it execute that cycle once or twice (or maybe a few more times). I imagine it wouldn't take too much programming and could be done with a small PIC microcontroller and a few relays.
Some additional info:
1. The size of the socket is about 27mm x 27mm
2. Gram force required to stay under about 30g.
3. Two design concepts
a.) actuate a 27 x 27 plunger into the socket several times for cleaning.
b.) actuate the socket down to a 27mm x 27mm cleaning block several times.
Now, I am the only engineer working here at the moment. (other than a guy who has a degree in polymer engineering)... So, I don't even know where to start as far as doing this project. Can anyone offer any advice on how to design the actuator setup?
Thank you in advance.
