Adjustable suspension

[chlego]

Hey everyone,

I signed up to Eurobricks because I need some help: I am building a 1:8 scale car right now, and I would really like to make an adjustable suspension for it. Point is: all my prototypes gave up under some weight, or weren't even capable of holding the spring in place...

Can someone please help me?

I do have an idea: the hole thing could be held by a worm gear.

[JoshsTechnicWorkshop]

Hi, welcome to Eurobricks! I believe this forum will have some information to help with your adjustable suspension idea. 

[chlego]

Hey,

Thanks, I will check this out, the topic seems to be quite long so that may take some time 

But thanks for the idea.

[MinusAndy]

Worm gear is a great solution to this problem. One thing that was discussed on the other thread is the idea of having physical stops that take the stress out of the gear train and directly into the chassis

[T Lego]

Hi @chlego , firstly welocme to EB! You are not the first to have troubles with an adjustable suspension setup. The key of a working setup is that the shock absorber mount stays in place when compressing the suspension whilst you want to be able to move it with for instance a knob too. A worm gear setup like you mentioned is definitely possible, it has been done before in quite a few mocs. The downside of such setup is that axles will get twisted slightly and usually there is a lot of backlash too. I prefer a setup with is either fully lowered or highered (so it does not allow little adjustments) in which all stress is put on the chassis like @MinusAndy mentioned. I am using a setup like that in my current wip and it works really well. The direction of the force on the pullies is the oposite if the suspension is lowered compared to when the suspension is highered. I hope it's useful.

 

 

 

Edited August 8, 2020 by T Lego

[Jeroen Ottens]

In my Audi R8 WIP topic you can find a setup for an adjustable suspension that not only changes rideheight, but also changes stiffness.

and the axle to change rideheight are not stressed in either position.

maybe you can use it 

[chlego]

 

14 hours ago, T Lego said:

Hi @chlego , firstly welocme to EB! You are not the first to have troubles with an adjustable suspension setup. The key of a working setup is that the shock absorber mount stays in place when compressing the suspension whilst you want to be able to move it with for instance a knob too. A worm gear setup like you mentioned is definitely possible, it has been done before in quite a few mocs. The downside of such setup is that axles will get twisted slightly and usually there is a lot of backlash too. I prefer a setup with is either fully lowered or highered (so it does not allow little adjustments) in which all stress is put on the chassis like @MinusAndy mentioned. I am using a setup like that in my current wip and it works really well. The direction of the force on the pullies is the oposite if the suspension is lowered compared to when the suspension is highered. I hope it's useful.

 

 

 

Thanks a lot! I thought for a suspension which was either lowered or highered, but I couldn't find any reliable way to make it. Will build the model there and see how it's like. I hope that it will be what I need 

8 hours ago, Jeroen Ottens said:

In my Audi R8 WIP topic you can find a setup for an adjustable suspension that not only changes rideheight, but also changes stiffness.

and the axle to change rideheight are not stressed in either position.

maybe you can use it 

Thank you! Will check that out too if I find the time. Is it also a 'fully lowered or highered' setup?

[chlego]

So I built @T Legos design, I secured it with a worm gear because, in the lowered position, the spring tended to be too hard for the system and the hole thing gave up. Now it works very well, I am quite pleased about that. The design now works with a 200% reliability 

@Jeroen Ottens I checked it out, looks very nice, and I will see what I can make out of it.

Thanks a lot again for your help guys!!

[T Lego]

@chlego Great to hear you made it work! I was wondering why your setup gave up in the lowered position (not to cause confusion, car would be in the highered position) and figured out it was because in my setup I have a 7x11 frame underneath the lower wishbone, naturaly decreasing the range of motion of the wishbones. The result is that the shock aborber is slightly precompressed and in a 'more horizontal' position so the direction of the force when compressing the shocks is now fully clockwise. If you use a similar setup you won't need the worm gear anymore to handle the load.

[chlego]

1 hour ago, T Lego said:

@chlego Great to hear you made it work! I was wondering why your setup gave up in the lowered position (not to cause confusion, car would be in the highered position) and figured out it was because in my setup I have a 7x11 frame underneath the lower wishbone, naturaly decreasing the range of motion of the wishbones. The result is that the shock aborber is slightly precompressed and in a 'more horizontal' position so the direction of the force when compressing the shocks is now fully clockwise. If you use a similar setup you won't need the worm gear anymore to handle the load.

I have now finished the base of the front axle, and I realized that the worm gear makes the system a fully adjustable suspension, and not only high/low!

Indeed, there can be a confusion, I mean the car in the highered position.

I'm going to replace my existing axle and continue building! 

Thanks again!