06.2 Design Process - Orange Juicer
CAD Design
After the main aspects and functionality of the design were finalized, we moved on to CAD software to turn our ideas into a working model. The CAD helped flesh out the more realistic aspects of the design, such as screw sizes and lengths, part dimensions, and where any collisions might happen.
In addition to fleshing out the design, we also used CAD software to run an FEA analysis on our model. The results of the simulation indicated that our design would experience of maximum deflection of about .2mm, with the whole design having a Factor Of Safety of at least 17, which are both within acceptable ranges for this scope.
Shaft Stabilizer
During testing of the design, we were encountering issues with the large slider becoming angled, and binding in the linear bearing at the top, so, we designed a stabilizer piece that mounts lower on the slider and helps keep it vertical. The design of the stabilizer involves two pieces that mount onto the metal post and fasten together around the slider. The hole was designed to leave a little wiggle room for the slider, so as to not create a lot of friction, while still preventing the large angled behavior that was causing issues.
Peel Ejector
The initial idea for the ejector was to have a timed mechanism that would lift the peel up and off the juicer. We pivoted from that idea after Lecture 18, instead choosing to pursue a cam and follower design.
The cam is based off of a Fibonacci spiral to load and release the spring more gradually. The first design was manually tested with several springs of varying stiffnesses to determine which ones would be the best for our application. A spring was loaded into a small test rig and then gradually compressed by hand rotating the cam. Once it was at maximum compression, it was released and judged for how much of a punch it could provide.
Once we determined the best of the four spring options, which turned out to be the one providing 7.117 N per centimeter of displacement, we designed the cam to interface at a different angle to allow the spring to release without any interference and cut out a slice of the spiral to avoid the pin hitting the cam on the way up. We then tested the full setup by holding it up and triggering it at different angles to an orange peel to see which angle would most reliably remove the peel. During this, we found that the original pointed design for the pusher tended to stab into the peel rather than pushing it off so we changed it to a blunted design.