Kepler's Guide to Cascade Lifts

[@imaginatorstudios4175]

Nice sloth. This is a very comprehensive guide. I actually do FTC but I've always been curious as to how Vex teams make sliding lifts. Mechanics were clearly explained and you gave a lot of other nice tips.

[@rdyer8764]

The technical stuff is good as usual, but I can't let this one go by without commenting on how your video skills are improving. Informative while being short and straight to the point AND great editing. Keep up the good work!

[@agliacci]

I feel like the dreadnought tutorial was more comprehensive and better build quality. Did you ever watch that one?

[@KeplerElectronics]

I did, just personally I still had a few questions after watching that which required some more trial and error, hence the need for another video.

[@MiguelPerez-jb9cz]

I'm taking an engineering course in my high school and in the class we are making vex robots, pulling this out would really impress some people. Thanks man

[@ericli2723]

This is a continuous lift not a cascade lift. I'm not quite sure how you deciphered a cascade lift which is linked in the description into a continuous one. Both work though. Great video. My first time seeing someone attempt a continuous lift in vex because people usually opt for the far superior cascade. One thing to note is that there is an obscene amount of friction in your lift. So much so that instead of the lightest 3rd stage lifting first, the lower 2nd stage lifts first. This indicates that the frictional force present is greater than the gravitational force which is the weight of the lift. this is a pretty good video showing the difference: The left one is cascade, the right one is continuous. kzbin.info/www/bejne/nZXcqaWPYriBnpY

[@KeplerElectronics]

You are totally right, thanks for pointing it out. I'm not quite sure how I managed to make that mistake! However, they are both functionally the same, lifting through the extension of different stages. I know that I have seen teams refer to both types as cascade lifts, so if someone wants to build one, they will find what they are looking for much easier as well. Yes, there is a ton of friction in the lift, but that could be remedied through either not using the vex slides which have a lot of friction problems, or at the very least using some white lithium grease. I wanted to focus on the mechanics of the lift and to show how it worked (because the hardest part for me when building these linear lifts was just figuring out how it all went together) rather than add in more complexity thanks to custom slides and such.

[@sebastianochoa5385]

@@KeplerElectronics cascade has all the lift sections extend at once while continuous is one at a time. each has some advantages and disadvantages with cascading requiring less motion and having a constant force and continuous being faster and lower torque

[@patrickzhao9072]

So helpful man, I watched your every single video, it really did helped me.

[@patrickzhao9072]

great job

[@DS-pr1iw]

From someone who only has experience in ftc, may I ask why you use chain instead of something like string?

[@huntert8dog720]

I am so mad last year I watch 25 videos on cascade lifts and then this comes out lol

[@NateTheStone]

just wondering do you have a merch store?

[@KeplerElectronics]

I've wanted to for years but haven't gotten around to it yet. I'm not impressed with Redbubble's quality and haven't seen enough interest to investigate something more custom (since web hosting and shopify costs money and such). I need to make new team gear since I got chain grease all over the hats I made for combat events in 2022, so I might investigate that when the time comes. Thanks for commenting : )

[@NateTheStone]

@@KeplerElectronics hey no problem, if you ever do make a shop though, do tell!

[@williemedicog2163]

Does the no spool version of the cascade lift retract better than a spooling one?

[@Danbotics]

Thanks for the great video! I'm helping to design a robot that needs to start within a 500x500x500mm box but extend an arm horizontally to nearly 2m in a way that allows a number of tennis balls to roll along it's length. I think your mechanism will be really useful! Now I just need to figure out how to attach a telescoping ramp to the top of it that extends along with the cascade. :D

[@flowerbeanvr4989]

Thank you so much! I have to build this in robotics and my team doesn’t do anything to help me so I do everything

[@alekseypolnoidey3248]

I built this one and it’s not going down can I please get an answer

[@aquinplays7586]

i wanted to know how i can mount on a platform that can hold a vex drone

[@Emeralplays]

i think you atach a link to the tall top chain and the chain will move the platform.

[@Akira-cd8kf]

I remeber making one of these in vex and I couldn't understand it so I let everyone else do it 😅

[@ivanright9997]

I like it except the 3 foot exposed chain, waiting to get hit and snapped

[@KeplerElectronics]

Yeah. You actually don't really need the chain out in front, it just allows you to not coil the chain around the sprocket. You could even swap it with string running over pulleys, as its really just the pull on the end of the mechanism that counts for this design.

[@sebastianochoa5385]

we use string and pulleys for these in FTC

[@liamsnow03]

Yeah this is definitely a continuous lift. A continuous lift a one continuous piece of rope (or chain) going through it which is exactly what you have. A cascade lift is where all the stages move up together each one below it at half the speed. Here is a picture of the difference www.chiefdelphi.com/uploads/default/original/3X/0/3/035af79a45dec44f7dd638697f52de7bd3250bc7.png