Hinges and rotors lose strength?

[Helios]

So I'm attempting (emphasis on attempting) to build a large grid mobile drilling rover. I've got my plan all sorted out and decided to start work on prototyping the drill first. My problem is once I've placed 10 or so pistons on the hinge > rotor > piston the hinge will only go down VERY slowly and not up at all (hinge 0* facing upwards) and the rotor wont rotate at all. Can someone explain why this happens so I can resolve the problem or is it a bug?

[herrschaftg35]

Hinges have always been weak. Make sure to adjust the strength settings on the rotor and that "shared inertia" & rotor lock are off. Rotors should still be able to handle a decent amount of weight.

[Helios]

Originally posted by herrschaftg35:

Hinges have always been weak. Make sure to adjust the strength settings on the rotor and that "shared inertia" & rotor lock are off. Rotors should still be able to handle a decent amount of weight.

So I should not use a hinge for the base of the drill? I should use a rotor instead?

[Dan2D3D]

Hi, some just add more hinges but Engineer testing on different concepts is a Must to find the working / stable solution, I mean we must redo different when a not working concept is found. (don't keep the not working ones)

Keep testing/trying different and you will find the solution.

+ You may have a look at other creations on the WOrkshop to see how they made it.

+

You may share some Steam screenshots or your save here so Veteran polayers can see/load to find the working concept for you.

>> How to publish a world save :

1 - Select your save.

2 - Click the "Publish" button on the left.

3 - Choose a proper Tag or skip all and click the OK button.

4 - Your world will be uploaded to Steam Workshop.

5 - Share the Workshop item link here.

[herrschaftg35]

Originally posted by Helios:

Originally posted by herrschaftg35:

Hinges have always been weak. Make sure to adjust the strength settings on the rotor and that "shared inertia" & rotor lock are off. Rotors should still be able to handle a decent amount of weight.

So I should not use a hinge for the base of the drill? I should use a rotor instead?

If you are sticking with just one, then don't use a hinge on the bottom. You can possibly use multiple hinges or rotors at the base but that is usually a PITA.

You could also redesign the drilling arm so that some of the pistons are fully extended while the rest are retracted when not being used. That may help balance the weight better for the hinge.

This one has a single hinge at the base and it barely works with only 4 pistons and 5 drills. The hinge is too weak to lower the arm back down into position unless the rear piston is extended.
https://steamuserimages-a.akamaihd.net/ugc/1763702583541164805/0032724A282FE06BD510B9C8EEBDF34D2BA9274E/

[Dan2D3D]

Here is one made by another player I was helping and that concept was working very well using rotor :
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2232593192

[Karmaterrorᵁᴷ]

There is a more complicated option... Use the hinge, but use a piston to actuate it.
Look at the legs on this...

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=914446678&searchtext=berserk+fury

The ddude madee it pre hinges so the pistons that move the legs are on rotors, but that could probably be swapped to hinges now. There are guides on you tube for how to attach them using the proper displacement settings. Cant find the one i used to use but the pic from this one looks about right...

https://youtu.be/8ayHKTdyQtM

Those can lift loooooads of weight :)

PS an afterthought... this might be 10x easier with a hinge. Because the two rotors/hinges for the piston are not gonna be offset from each other, they will be perfectly aligned off the bat. Just line up the piston and merge it :D

[Helios]

Hey guys I found out what the problem was. Turns out hinges and rotors don't do too well when shared inertia is on. Another thing I found out is if you have more than 1 rotor or hinge for some reason the strength of the following ones get reduced. I've seen people make ropes out of hinges so I have no idea how they've done that when I've only experienced hinges losing strength in that situation. Anyhows thank you for the your help :)

[Dan2D3D]

Well done!
Shared inertia may be needed or not so it's important to do the test and keep trying different concepts till solution found.

The best advice I can share is to setup/test one grid at a time, I mean add one rotor and setup till "perfect" before adding a new grid and you will pinpoint the "concepts to avoid" faster doing so.

Slowly but surely

[frag2k4]

Originally posted by Helios:

Hey guys I found out what the problem was. Turns out hinges and rotors don't do too well when shared inertia is on. Another thing I found out is if you have more than 1 rotor or hinge for some reason the strength of the following ones get reduced. I've seen people make ropes out of hinges so I have no idea how they've done that when I've only experienced hinges losing strength in that situation. Anyhows thank you for the your help :)

Believe those ropes are created via reducing the torque of the hinge to 0 along with braking torque so they move without resistance.

[dragonsphotoworks]

I have used hinges to lift large heavy grids. Here is video of one of my drill modules as example..
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AvaUVGLMrho

Also what can do "i dont have the video uploaded and deleted BP to make room :-(" is use pistons as the force and hinge as the pivot point. ive made HUGE heavy arms that way. I had one that could lift 50,000,000 KG easily. But it was bit difficult to build as had to use lot of merge blocks in constuction to merge parts correctly.

But hinges alone CAN move large weights if done right. Also i found that rotors ive had to add weight to back end of it. As at times it seems weight of rotor section dictates over all power. Im not sure how or why... but i had a rotor that wouldnt rotate a weight horizontally. Untill i added artifical mass blocks to back end of it... then all of sudden it started to move 0.0

[frag2k4]

You can also create a type of fulcrum device to help move the hinge.

For example if the setup has hinge, piston x 8 in serial before the drill setup and it's not lifting.

Put some where in the middle of the piston line a conveyor junction and off the on it's back end put a hinge. Then from the base somewhere further back another hinge and piston tower but this one is extended.

You can then use this group via retracting the piston to pull the tower upright.

[SIDEKICK]

Originally posted by Helios:

So I'm attempting (emphasis on attempting) to build a large grid mobile drilling rover. I've got my plan all sorted out and decided to start work on prototyping the drill first. My problem is once I've placed 10 or so pistons on the hinge > rotor > piston the hinge will only go down VERY slowly and not up at all (hinge 0* facing upwards) and the rotor wont rotate at all. Can someone explain why this happens so I can resolve the problem or is it a bug?

have you tried torque ? both the torque and the brake torque and velocity.