Arduino Pneumatic Servo Sculpture Test

Testing out my new Arduino controled pneumatic servo rig with some parts from my Machine for Preserving the Wind sculpture.

The set up is to have an Arduino uno hooked up to a pair of mouse type air solenoid valves and a pneumatic ram. There is an analog IR distance sensor as the input, and the ram has a homemade string potentiometer mounted to read its position, allowing for a closed loop control system.

The position holding is pretty close, but because the load of 20 pounds of concrete is swinging and the air pressure on one side of the cylinder is greater than the other the ram has to cycle the valves to seek the correct spot. I might try increasing the poll rate too, right now its between 50-80ms, but I could go down to about 15ms.

Currently I am running the system at about 40 psi with a flow restrictor choked down almost the whole way. I could double the pressure but I think I would start to break the wooden bits.

[jeremykeenan]

Hello - very cool you managed to get so much motion out of a single piston. I notice that I can't really hear the sound of your air compressor in the background. Have you done anything to make that happen, or is it just far away from the sculture?