Well Windlass

Our original sketches.

Preliminary side sketch (with accurate measurements) of our well.

Sketches of our parts and their measurements.

Measurements for our bushings and the hole for our rods.

Foam well windlass prototype. We focused a lot on the height of the windlass in order to make sure that our windlass rose the full 10cm above the table.

Bushings parts in Solidworks

Side part in Solidworks.

Crank in Solidworks.

Test pieces of the top and bushings.

Complete set of test pieces for various parts.

Final windlass spanning the 'well'

Final measurements of how much Delrin our windlass used.

Engineering Analysis: Our windlass works using very tight press-and-fit notches at the top of the structure in order to keep our two flat pieces together. In order to keep the bottom of the sides from flattening out, we added extra supports on the sides. We made the support rods as tight as we could in order to prevent slipping, as well as adding bushings on the end of each. We put the rod as close to the table in order to spread out the weight and not put too much pressure on the top notches. We had to align the homes on each side in order to keep the rod straight and make them big enough to spin easily. We could control the width of the sides and the height of the structure but not the strength of the material (though it was fairly strong) and the thickness. Our structure was fairly sturdy due to the wide legs parallel to the gap. We also kept our structure as short as we could (while still maintaining the required height) which greatly reduced wobbling. 

Reflection: We began with many diverse ideas for our structure. Our actual decision-making process probably could've taken a shorter amount of time but we ended up going with the design the used a reasonable amount of material, seemed to be the sturdiest, and was simple enough to build. We then made the Solidworks drawing and foam prototypes, making some small measurement adjustments as needed in Solidworks. We then made many test pieces in order to make sure that our measurements for the notches and business were correct. Our first copy was warped and our sides were ruined because one of lines wasn't hairline for some reason. Our second cope fit together well, although if we were to redo anything, we would have designed and printed a new crank.